i am republishing everything temporarily in order to use mirroring software to pull it down. i expect this post to be taken down within 24-48 hours. i would request you refrain from unwanted moderation in that time frame, so i can take my site down from here and upload somewhere that cares more about speech rights and less about conservative value systems.
wednesday, december 1, 2021
the canadian government is currently being lead by the overgrown teenage son of a previous prime minister, who has no discernible relevant education or experience, and no business being where he is. he was elected strictly on nostalgia for his father. he has surrounded himself with incompetent yes-people, and pushed away any competent voices that might challenge him. he seems to have a chip on his shoulder, and he seems to have strong authoritarian tendencies that the party is not acting firmly enough to keep in check.
right now, canada is somewhat of a basket case, and should be treated like a backwards princedom (even like an oil sheikdom) that needs a lot of guidance, and not like a functioning democracy in the g7.
and, we might not have a clear path back to respectability any time soon, unfortunately.
it is better to ignore the arrogance in the opening move and just take control of the situation, as the senior partner.
0:03
yes, it's passive aggressive. yes, it's a challenge.
ignore it, like you would ignore a foolish child.
they don't understand what they're doing.
0:09
and, let me plead with the party yet again - you need to get this dumbass out of power, before he does something irreversible.
0:12
it would appear to be true that the only way to get high-risk people to avoid the risk that could or will kill them is to shut down the places they might go. i just need to demand that this actually be done based on evidence, this time.
so, shut down the churches and the bingo halls and the "family restaurants" and the all you can eat buffets and the other places that these people go with or without their families.
it really doesn't help to shut down concerts, bars and nightclubs - those are not the people clogging up the system.
0:31
this was initially dated to nov 11th and i'll get back to it but not for the foreseeable future. i had no intent of spending weeks or months working this out.
i have sorted through a large percentage of the parishes in the region northeast of quebec city and, while i have found some information relating to this michel parent's second wife, i haven't determined where she died or if she left any children. while i have re-established the link at the site, i do not believe it is correct. due to the dates, i would really need a birth record of a charles parent born to the second wife before i took the idea of this michel being the father of this charles seriously. a death record of the second wife would be just as useful in disproving the parentage.
so, i have very little confidence in the idea that my ancestor from perce, quebec was born in quebec city, but i don't have an alternate hypothesis. i believe i have convincingly cast enough doubt on the accuracy of the assumed connection to discard it, but i can't find anything else. i'm sure i'm not the first person that's gone looking.
i just can't understand how the person got from a relatively comfortable existence in quebec city to marrying a metis woman and living in a fishing hut in perce. that is completely incoherent, and really just can't be right. i can imagine that the person may have come from a number of areas around perce, but that marriage to the metis woman, isobel huard, makes no sense at all, in context. this was a widow in a distant region, and all evidence would suggest charles was unmarried in an advanced age - something else that seems unlikely.
it's possible that his ancestry is obscured entirely intentionally, that he didn't want people to know where he came from. or, maybe we just haven't found the right record. but, as far as i'm concerned, his ancestry is unknown. he may have been a fisherman from newfoundland or some other islands, and i suspect he was ultimately of breton ancestry, given that he was of celtic ancestry.
you can go back further if you'd like, but i will have to stop there.
=====
so, i've spent the last several hours sorting through church parishes and firming up sources. you can sort through the record starting here and moving up, but i'm also going to post my own writing here.
so, here's the link to stanley:
...who is:
1) my father's father's father
name: stanislaus parent
born: 1904, ottawa [birth record exists]
died: 1960, ottawa [headstone documentation exists]
father: michel parent [in birth record]
mother: annie landreville [in birth record] [apparent franco-slavic ancestry]
wife: lucienne st denis [direct, clear dna hit]
1911 census: montebello, quebec
1921 census: sabine township, nipissing, northern ontario
while it is clear that stanislaus' father, michel, was married to marguerite gauthier, the fact is that his birth certificate says his mother was named annie landreville, and there is no evidence this person is the same as marguerite lendreville. yet, stanislaus parent was raised in the household of michel parent and marguerite landreville. if annie lendreville was not of exceedingly close relation to marguerite landreville, this would be unthinkable. roseanna lendreville is a best guess as to the identity of annie landreville.
note that the existence of an adolphe parent born in july 1904 to marguerite landreville means that stanislaus, born in march 1904, could not have been the son of marguerite.
2) his father
name: michel parent
born: 1876, ottawa [no direct birth record found. date of birth calculated from census and marriage documents]
died: unclear. may have emigrated to the united states.
father: michel parent [in marriage and death records]
mother: marie sigman [in marriage records] [direct, clear dna hit] [apparent judeo-germanic ancestry]
wife: marguerite landreville [not the mother but likely the sister of the mother of stanley parent]
1881 census: ottawa
1891 census: ottawa
1901 census: ottawa
1905 birth record: residence in whitney, south algonquin, nipissing, northern ontario
1911 census: montebello, quebec
1921 census: sabine township, nipissing, northern ontario
michael seemed to move around a lot, but if you follow the logic, it must all be the same person. the key is looking at the names of the children, which show up repeatedly in all of these places. he seems to have been born in ottawa, and moved back and forth from montebello and nipissing, where his father lived. he seems to have even spent some time as a lodger in nipissing. perhaps he had some work related concerns in the region.
some of his children were born in ottawa, some were born in nipissing. the curious circumstances around his son stanley's birth seems to be correlated with a movement to northern ontario. the gauthier/landeville family also seems to have had interests in the nipissing area. this is the region around sudbury rich in mining, particularly nickel.
also note that the existence of an adolphe parent born in july 1904 means that stanislaus, born in march 1904, could not have been the son of marguerite.
it is not clear when or where he died.
3) his father
name: michel parent
born: 1848, perce, gaspe, quebec [parish record located]
died: 1922, whitney, nipissing, northern ontario [death certificate located]
father: chas parent [in parish records]
mother: jane dunn [in parish records] [anglo-scottish ancestry]
wife: margaret sigman
1861 census: perce, gaspe, quebec
1871 census: perce, gaspe, quebec
1881 census: ottawa
1891 census: ottawa
1901 census: record not located. may have been in the united states.
1911 census: sabine township, nipissing, northern ontario
1921 census: sabine township, nipissing, northern ontario
there is a clear birth record in perce in 1848, clear children in ottawa after 1876, a clear residence in ottawa in 1881, a clear residence in nippissing in 1911 and a clear death record in nippising in 1922. i was not able to find a 1901 census hit.
4) his father
name: chas parent
born: c. 1814, perce, gaspe, quebec [parish record has been destroyed]
died: 1884, perce, gaspe, quebec [parish record located]
father: chas parent [in parish records]
mother: isobel huard [in parish records] [metis ancestry]
wife: genevieve dunn
1836: marriage record places in perce, gaspe, quebec
1861 census: perce, gaspe, quebec
1871 census: perce, gaspe, quebec
1881 census: perce, gaspe, quebec
there are no birth records of this charles parent at the church in perce, so he was very difficult to track, but his parents are listed in his marriage certificate, in the same church.
the earliest reference to charles directly is his marriage to elizabeth parker in 1836.
the 1825 census is ambiguous, but convincing as circumstantial evidence. charles's father, also charles, seems to have had difficulty filling it out. the only coherent way to read it is that chas reported 5 people in his personal household, then also reported his wife's children from her previous marriage. further, he must have misunderstood the section about children under 14, as he claims he had a daughter under 14 and only one child under 14. in order to actually have five people in his home (himself, his wife, his two sons and his daughter - not including the children from his wife's previous marriage), he'd need to have a son under 14 in addition to his daughter. the section on children under 14 was meant to apply to both genders, but was on the page with males. charles simply must have gotten confused filling it out.
5) his father
name: chas parent
born: 1768, unknown location [caclulated parish death record]
died: 1850, perce, gaspe, quebec [parish record located]
father: michel parent [in marriage parish records]
mother: m lse bufsiere [in marriage parish records] [unclear ancestry]
wife: isobel huard
circumstantial evidence places him on ile d'orleans from 1768ish on
1806 marriage places him in the gaspe
1825 census: perce, gaspe, quebec
the charles parent in the gaspe (d 1850) that was married to isobel huard and the father of michel (b 1806), marie (b 1812) and charles (exact birth record lost) is identified as the son of michel parent and marie louise bufsiere in his marriage record in perce in 1806. it also specifies that his parents were from what looks like beauport.
while this is very close to a match to the charles parent from quebec city that was the son of michel parent and marie therese bussiere, the birth records are really not consistent, and the names are similar, at best.
the earliest direct reference to this charles is the 1806 marriage. according to the 1825 census, he would have been between 40-65 and hence born between 1760 and 1785. the death record pegs his age at 82, suggesting he was born around 1768 - too early for the 1774 baptismal record attached to the quebec city charles. another point of ambiguity is that the marriage to marie therese bussiere was in 1769, which was probably after charles was born.
outside of the dating mismatch, the key problem with the quebec city hypothesis is missing documentation directly linking these two records across space. the 1825 census would not be useful because both of his parents were already dead. further, there are really no reliable sources in canada that are older than this, besides church parishes, and they would not document travel or residence lists. given the date and name mismatches, the fact that the parish record specifies beauport is strictly circumstantial.
it is worth pointing out that there was a large number of loyalist soldiers living in and around quebec city at the time, a number of which had the surname parent, and some of which were french and some of which were english. a charles parent of this sort may have met his marie louise befsiere in quebec city and taken her to gaspe.
there are places named beauport all over the world.
all of that said, i have exhausted the process of trying to prove alternate theories and am going to re-establish the connection to michel out of a sense of responsibility, while insisting that the mother is not marie therese bussiere. that means that this charles is not the same charles as was born in 1774, and that they had different mothers, but possibly had the same father.
the caveat is that there is no record of this charles anywhere in any of the parishes - he first pops up in perce, while marrying isobel huard.
but, there is reason to think such a charles may have fallen through the cracks of the record-keeping. michel parent does indeed seem to have been an army person, but a local quebecois one, rather than a loyalist soldier living in a camp outside of town. marie therese bussiere seems to have been his third wife, legally. the scenario around his second wife isn't entirely clear, but his second and third wife seem to have been from a large rural island off the coast of quebec city called ile d'orleans, indicating that michel spent at least some of his time there - perhaps even fishing, but perhaps, in truth, enjoying the company of the local women. while it seems unlikely that any of the legitimate children of michel parent would have left for perce to become employees of the corporate fishery, the idea that the illegitimate child of an army guy may have left town after being rejected or cut out seems like a realistic enough scenario to go with it. marie therese bussiere does in fact have some relatives called marie louise, but there is no record in the parish of a charles born to any of them.
the power of this theory is that it answers the hardest question, which is how charles came to be a fisherman, which requires the purchase of a fishing vessel and years worth of experience. growing up on the isle d'orleans may have provided charles with the opportunity to learn about fishing, he may have gone to gaspe to fish while young and he may have even just sailed out to gaspe from quebec city out of desperation, landed in the forest and married an orphaned metis woman.
this may essentially be a fanciful tale, but it is an attempt to salvage a linked record that is otherwise impossible to prove. i will reiterate: the dates and names do not match, and this consequently really cannot be the charles born in 1774. but, there is enough evidence linking charles to the bussiere family on ile d'orleans, and enough evidence regarding the sexual activities of his father, to conclude that there is probably something to the link.
============
i may be able to find a little more about a parent family located in the southern gaspe by sorting through the parish in paspébiac. so, that's what i'm doing tonight.
but, i think that's probably where i stop with this, as anything further back appears to be untraceable, reliably.
6:10
like, we're not talking about somebody moving to a different town. i moved to a different town; that's not so crazy.
we're talking about somebody moving from the city of quebec to an uninhabited (even by the natives.) remote wilderness, marrying an indigenous widow and working as a corporate fisherman, a job that required tools and taught skills.
i'm sorry: that's insane enough to be impossible.
he seems to have claimed he was from somewhere named beauport, and all we have is the scrawled assertion in a parish record. if he lied, he lied - we'll never prove it.
but, the record in beauport that was identified as his isn't consistent. it's not right.
6:20
if our charles was born around 1768 as suggested, and did not marry until 1806, and married a widow when he did, he was probably on his second or third marriage, himself.
6:23
the first reliable record is the marriage record in 1806.
he claims he was from beauport, but we can't find the record.
that is all.
6:35
do you think that metis widows are usually likely to marry distant city dwellers that pop up out of nowhere?
6:40
there's a beauport in guadeloupe, a beauport in jersey, a beauport in massachusetts...
you could throw darts at a map and hit a beauport.
6:45
it seems like the russians have built a functional sdi, after decades of failed attempts by the americans. so, now, the americans want to bring back the abm, all of a sudden.
it's typical american two-facedness.
i oppose the weaponization of space, although i don't really know what good it will do me to take that view. but, the russians have every right to look down their noses at the americans on this, as they seemed to support the idea so long as they were winning the arms race. and, it's not clear why moscow would relinquish an advantage that it has gained through legitimate effort, in the face of decades of american failure.
the russian threat may have been exaggerated, but don't listen to people telling you that the russians are incapable.
i've been clear that i want the russians on our side as we contain the chinese - because i realize that, in the case of an armed conflict between nato and china, it is the russians that will - again - determine the outcome.
16:06
so, i think this is done, now.
18:54
i've never heard of this person before, but it's very concerning to see the police behave in this manner.
abstractly claiming that people ought or should be killed is not a death threat. a death threat is an actionable, concrete statement with an identifiable victim, and an imminent, serious intent. what she said is legally equivalent to suggesting that all guns 'n' roses fans ought to be rounded up and strangled in their own vomit, something i happen to believe is true - it's a statement of contempt, but it's not an actionable statement of imminent harm and is therefore not a threat under the law.
i hope that she sues the government for false imprisonment, to offer a clear disincentive for these kinds of fascist tactics by the state to silence individual expression.
20:23
if somebody were to carry out an act of violence and claim she was the inspiration, would she be liable?
not any more than a video game manufacturer, or a violent rapper, or a director of smutty films.
20:28
fwiw, i'm not really into pedophilia, but all hail satan!
20:31
i'm more of a radical queer satanist, myself.
20:35
what she's calling for actually sounds like the fenian raids.
if canada wants to take this seriously, it should immediately ask for the extradition of all fenians to canada.
20:48
how, exactly, does a deer catch covid?
i could understand how a dog or a cat, or even a horse or a pig, or even a squirrel or rat, could catch covid. but, deer are pretty fearful of humans...and for good reason...
so, i can only really imagine two ways such a thing happens:
1) the virus is so airborne that it travels into the forest, in which case we should stop wasting our time with social distancing opr
2) skeeters.
it's gotta be skeeters. right?
21:49
i remember having a beer at a bar in carleton place once called the moose and getting stuck inside for hours because there was an actual moose on the road. it happens, in canada. if that moose tried that nowadays, it would catch covid, for sure.
however, deer are not moose - they don't brazenly march into town.
21:55
thursday, december 2, 2021
so, i wanted to take a flip through and make sure i didn't miss any substantive asimov posts, and i didn't. that's why the celiac & ancestry posts came up.
i will get to this, in succession; i mentioned that. i just can't be tricking myself into thinking i can do little bits. i have to go back, finish everything and push forward.
i am again feeling very tense and frustrated tonight (a frequent occurrence recently that i'm tying to unwanted testosterone spikes as a result of insufficient testosterone blocking), so i need to sleep. i didn't get the legal stuff i wanted done. but, i'm otherwise ready to put together the loose ends on the filing and really get it finished.
0:17
friday, december 3, 2021
i had to crash when i got in. that was a harder right than usual.
i got some more results, and they're actually fairly concerning. let's pick this up on the bottom end:
| 2021 | 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | j | f | m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | |
| creatinine | 78/80 | - | - | - | - | 87 | 84 | 83 / 81 | 80 | 90 | ||||||||||||
| egfr | 107/106 | - | - | - | - | 96 | 100 | 101 / 104 | 106 | 92 | ||||||||||||
| alp | 61 | - | - | 63 | 59 | 50 | 60 | 59 /55 | 47 | 50 | ||||||||||||
| albumin | -/45.7 | - | - | - | 45.9 | 44.6 | 46.8 | 48 /46 | 46.7 | 49.8 | ||||||||||||
| cholesterol | 3.93 | - | - | - | 3.99 | 3.8 | 4.15 | 4.01/3.83 | 4.14/4.02 | 4.14 | ||||||||||||
| triglycerides | .87 | - | - | - | .95 | .89 | 1.41 | 1.05/0.94 | 1.09/1.32 | 1.86 | ||||||||||||
| hdl | 1.69 | - | - | - | 1.84 | 1.59 | 1.73 | 1.42/1.55 | 1.37/1.42 | 1.51 | ||||||||||||
| ldl | 1.85 | - | - | - | 1.72 | 1.81 | 1.78 | 2.11/1.85 | 2.28/2.00 | 1.79 | ||||||||||||
| non-hdl | 2.24 | - | - | - | 2.15 | 2.21 | 2.42 | 2.59/2.28 | 2.77/2.60 | 2.63 | ||||||||||||
| wbc | 8.7/8.4 | 9.9/9.0 | - | - | ? | 7.0 | 7.6 | 6.9/6.9 | 7.8 | 11.3 | ||||||||||||
| rbc | 3.97/4.25 | 4.11/4.38 | - | - | 4.17 | 4.12 | 4.33 | 4.47/4.2 | 4.28 | 4.55 | ||||||||||||
| hemoglobin | 132/140 | 133/142 | - | - | 139 | 136 | 141 | 138/138 | 139 | 144 | ||||||||||||
| hematocrit | .382/.404 | .394/.424 | - | - | .405 | .398 | .418 | .417/.402 | .405 | 0.431 | ||||||||||||
| mcv | 96.1/95.1 | 95.8/97.0 | - | - | 97 | 96.8 | 96.6 | 93/95.7 | 94.6 | 94.7 | ||||||||||||
| mch | 33.1/32.9 | 32.4/32.5 | - | - | 33.3 | 33.2 | 32.7 | 30.9/32.8 | 32.5 | 31.8 | ||||||||||||
| mchc | 345/346 | 338/335 | - | - | ? | 343 | 338 | 331/343 | 344 | 335 | ||||||||||||
| rdw | 13.3/13.5 | 13.0/13.1 | - | - | ? | 13 | 12.3 | 11.7/12.9 | 12.6 | 13.4 | ||||||||||||
| platelet | 199/187 | 171/171 | - | - | ? | 175 | 167 | 168/150 | 155 | 188 | ||||||||||||
| reticulocytes | - | -/42 | - | - | 53 | 56 | 46 | 35 | 33 | 33 | ||||||||||||
| vitamin d | 87 | - | - | - | 109 | 72 | 64 | 72/83 | 78 | 64 | ||||||||||||
| estradiol | 363/388 | - | - | - | - | 563 | 443 | 432 | 777 | |||||||||||||
| estrone | - | - | - | - | - | ? | 4138 | 5203 | 7000+ | |||||||||||||
| testosterone | 0.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | |||||||||||||
| progesterone | 1.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | |||||||||||||
| fsh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.2 | 0.1 | <0.1 | |||||||||||||
| lh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | |||||||||||||
| ferritin | 12/9 | 6/17 | 21 | - | 29 | 43 | 28 | 40 | 42 | 59 | ||||||||||||
| tibc | - | 69.5 | - | - | 65.7 | 62.9 | 64.7 | 58.9 | 58.2 | 63.2 | ||||||||||||
| iron | - | 9.6 | - | - | 22.7 | 37.3 | 19.3 | 28.3 | 37.3 | 32.5 | ||||||||||||
| iron sat | - | 0.14 | - | - | 0.35 | 0.59 | 0.3 | .48 | 0.64 | 0.51 | ||||||||||||
| transferrin | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.59 | 2.29 | 2.38 | |||||||||||||
| sodium | - | - | - | - | - | - | 141 | 141/139 | 140 | 141 | ||||||||||||
| potassium | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5.0 | 4.7/4.6 | 4.3 | 4.0 | ||||||||||||
| chloride | - | - | - | - | - | - | 104 | 107/105 | 104 | 101 | ||||||||||||
| phosphate | -/1.42 | - | - | - | - | 1.09 | 1.34 | 1.08 | 1.35 | 1.27 | ||||||||||||
| magnesium | -/.93 | - | - | - | - | 0.8 | 0.82 | 0.86 | 0.82 | 0.84 | ||||||||||||
| calcium | -/2.4 | - | - | - | 2.38 | 2.32 | 2.44 | 2.39 | 2.4 | 2.43 | ||||||||||||
| pth | - | - | - | 5.5 | - | 6.2 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 5.5 | 8.0 | ||||||||||||
| tsh | 0.92 | - | - | - | - | 0.94 | 1.22 | 1.67 | 1.48 | 1.07 | ||||||||||||
| calcitonin | - | - | - | <0.6 | - | - | - | - | <0.6 | |||||||||||||
| cortisol | - | - | - | 325 | - | 464 | 170 | 129 | 225 | |||||||||||||
| insulin | - | - | - | - | - | 50 | 33 | 68 | 92 | |||||||||||||
| b12 | 223/251 | - | 304 | - | 363 | 313 | 370 | 292 | 369 | 376 | ||||||||||||
my kidney function caved, my triglycerides shot through the roof, my white blood cells are up, my d is low, my pth is high, my ferritin is up and even my albumin was high. what the fuck?
i had just gotten off the end of a a roughly three hour bike ride, the last leg of it being unusually challenging because i was biking directly into 40 km/h winds, with much higher gusts. i was absolutely feeling it on the way back, with sore legs and a dry throat. and, i hadn't eaten in roughly 18 hours.
i think i was dehydrated, and that is probably the cause of the decrease in kidney function and rise in albumin. the boost in triglycerides (which is why the total was over 4) is harder to understand, given that:
1) i've recently lost the weight i put on immediately after the surgery, even given that i wasn't able to get my exercise in last week, due to the weather. understand that it was, like, a couple of pounds. it's not like i gained 20 pounds or something. my bmi is usually something like 19, and might have peaked around 22 right after the surgery. i'm currently back in normal range, which i'm guessing is around 20..
2) i just got off a three hour bike ride. like, it was within minutes. that should decrease triglycerides.
3) i have absolutely no refined sugar in my diet at all, and there is in fact never a time in which i did. i've never been the kind of person that eats any junk food; i eat fresh or flash-frozen fruits and vegetables, pretty much strictly. the worst thing was always the pasta, but i replaced it with quinoa, recently. and, it hasn't changed - i've moved the ordering of my diet around, but i haven't changed what i'm eating.
4) i've been straight-edge for months and months. it's been almost two years since i consumed any - any - alcohol.
5) i hadn't eat in 18 hours, anyways, which is lengthy, for a fast. that should crash the triglycerides to the low levels seen earlier this year.
if it was at 1.86 after all that, it must have been over 2.00 before i got on the bike, at least, and i've seen no symptoms of such a thing. so, might it have been 0.86, instead? might my cholesterol therefore be lower?
as you can see, my triglycerides have usually been very low. but they've been fluctuating since after the surgery. nothing else has changed. so, why did they go up that high, so randomly, after a combined exercise and fast? if we're to take it seriously, i'm looking at my pancreas, again.
but, the reality is that that reading simply does not make sense and i shouldn't really react to it at all.
when i brought the issue with my pancreas up last time, my doctor suggested the numbers were clinically fine, and i really had no dissent, i was operating more on a hunch that they're all at the endpoints of the accepted ranges. but, the hunch is growing - there's a pattern developing around a potentially underactive pancreas that we might be able to catch in time. we'll see what the next insulin reading says. but, i may have to mount a case against my pancreas, and i might be up against a little bit of complacency regarding it. he's still blithering on about the scope...
speaking of which, the ferritin is good enough this reading that i'm going to take the iron pills out to every third meal instead of every second. i'm clearly not bleeding. i guess i was just very low due to years of overestimating the amount i was getting in meat products like salami (and, this is something where the lack of drinking in the pandemic is probably the cause of my ferritin going from lowish to dangeous, as i generally only buy meat in restaurants, and i haven't been making my morning diner runs because i haven't had a reason to.) and i'm slowly but surely rebuilding the stores in the presence of the pills.
i don't know yet how much of this is due to the pills and how much is due to adding things like basil to my diet. it seems to be working, though. so long as it keep coming up, i'll just keep spacing the iron pills out more and more and, if i don't need them in the end, great. i may find, in the end, that avocados are actually a better source of iron than meat is - and far better for your heart.
i'll get them to do the cholesterol again next time, which will again be before my next appointment. you'll note that the ldl also fell back to normal ranges, so maybe i'm just dealing with flux, if it isn't a typo. remember that i reduced my cyproterone on the 22nd. after an initial bounce, it's been ok, but it might be flux. i'm putting my body under a lot of stress, and i know it. if so, let's hope these bounces don't get out of control, and i can return things back to normal, soon. i'm eventually going to be off those pills entirely, remember. that was the point...
i hope that my triglycerides don't end up increasing as a result of going off the cyproterone; that is, i hope that the cyproterone wasn't suppressing and masking an existing problem.
testosterone is generally bad for cholesterol levels, and estrogen is generally good for it. however, low testosterone is in fact associated with the specific counter-effect of increased triglycerides. i guess that your body is converting less fat to testosterone, so it builds up; the actual problem is that the person experiencing low testosterone is also consuming too much energy and needs to reduce their calorie intake. but, my testosterone levels are, if anything, higher than they were before the surgery (i got my rec for dheas). the surgery did not decrease my testosterone; i've had undetectable testosterone for 20 years, and was probably deficient as a child, at that. my triglycerides were always low before. so, as my testosterone did not decrease, this can't be about low testosterone. there's just not a causal relationship, there.
it might be about the cyproterone (the progesterone, specifically), it might be my pancreas, it might be a typo, it might be "stress" (i know that's undefinable, but i'm talking about throwing what was a stable system in general hormonal chaos that needs to figure out how it's going to fall into equilibrium) and it might be random. we'll find out soon enough, and i'll make sure to eat some sugar (refined.) before i go in to check my insulin. i may have to build a case against my pancreas...
you have to understand that staying on the cyproterone indefinitely was going to destroy my liver, and that it had stopped working as desired, on top of it. and, going off the pills to detransition simply wasn't an option, for me. my options may not have been great, but i had to do something, and i can't second guess it now.
what about the vitamin d?
it's the winter, in canada. the reason i went on the d pills was that i wanted to stabilize the levels before the winter, as i intended to take the pills in the winter. it actually had the opposite effect of what i intended, because i was out biking in the sun so often, and with few clothes on - it just came in as excess d, which lead to a calcium boost and subsequent crash in d. now, as i'm getting less sun, my body is producing less d - which is the thing i was worried about and trying to stop. i also spaced my eggs out from my salad, meaning i'm getting less d in total (eggs are a major source of d, but i was just eating too much, in total). so, i've put myself back on 1/2 d per day to fill in for the lost sunlight. i get a fair amount of d in my diet via fortification, and i don't want to overdo it, which is the real lesson from the previous outcome. this is a newton's method on the d, apparently. my calcitonin from last test also came in at 0, which i'm continuing to wonder about.
my potassium and tsh are moving in the direction that suggests decreasing testosteronic effects. but, this is a small sample. we'll see about the cortisol next test.
is it possible that the high tricglycerides had to do with the increased wbc, or may have been the result of exercising too hard, requiring my body to release triglycerides from the liver as a form of energy? yes. but, who knows.
let's see what the next reading says.
so,
1) i think i was dehydrated
2) i think i was hungry
3) i've put myself on 500 iu of d daily, after lunch, for now (which may produce kidney strain).
4) i'm pulling back these iron pills to every third day (which hopefully reduces it a little).
5) that triglyceride reading just makes no sense to me and i'm going to ignore it.
6) i may have caught a cold, somewhere. i have no symptoms.,...
18:35
saturday, december 4, 2021
thursday was the warm day this week, so i was able to get out for my ride out of town - and i really felt it on the way back, having to slog through the wind. i was making good time the other way (with the wind at my back), but noticed the brick wall immediately on turning around. it was just brutal.
eventually, after a two hour struggle, i did make it to get the blood test, and you saw the results. i'm going to redo a few things next week that i wouldn't normally - creatinine, pth - but i'm also going to make sure to hydrate myself when i'm exercising, and not go long hours without eating. speaking of which...
i initially felt fairly awake when i got in, but when i finally crashed, it was zombie sleep. i wanted to get the monthly cleaning done, take a shower and crash, but i didn't get halfway through it before i passed out on the couch. and, this was comatose zonked out sleep, the kind it's hard to get up from.
that's fine - i needed some exercise, clearly.
but, it screwed up the weekend. i didn't wake up until friday afternoon, and was only able to get half of the cleaning done. i sat down to hydroxyapatite my teeth early this morning and have been doing another tag run on my bandcamp site. now, i need to eat again.
if i can get the cleaning down by the afternoon, i need to do the legal stuff i was putting off, after that. and, then i need to finish the filing, before i get to any more books. so, i might lose the alter-reality this weekend, but it will be with the intent to catch up over the week.
8:00
Triglycerides are also known to respond biphasically to energy deprivation, decreasing with short-term fasting, increasing with starvation, and tending to be elevated with obesity (26).
that's about the only thing that makes sense to me - i overdid it, in exercising too hard after not eating enough. my body went into starvation mode.
and, that might be the actual explanation of the pth boost, too, although i do think it's reasonable to take d in the winter in canada.
i have a habit of not eating - i know that and i'm sure it's a part of the problems i was having, in the first place. i gained a few pounds, and that's what i do - i starve myself. i need to not do that.
one big breakfast, coming up.
8:11
After the exhaustion of the glycogen reserve, and for the next 2–3 days, fatty acids are the principal metabolic fuel. At first, the brain continues to use glucose, because if a non-brain tissue is using fatty acids as its metabolic fuel, the use of glucose in the same tissue is switched off. Thus, when fatty acids are being broken down for energy, all of the remaining glucose is made available for use by the brain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation_response
so, i seem to have run out of sugar and needed to transport fatty acids (stored in the liver) to my brain (and other organs) for fuel. hence, the boost in triglycerides. this is counter-intuitive, because high triglycerides usually mean you have too much sugar. i did understand i was starving (if perhaps not literally) and got a meal replacement at the grocery store, within an hour. regardless, i obviously don't want to be relying on triglycerides for energy, as that has the potential to build up plaque in your blood vessels. i just hope my hdl is high enough to clear it out.
i also ran out of water, drying out my kidneys and boosting my albumin.
and, i had to cannibalize my bones for calcium.
fasting is stupid. i didn't realize what i did; i just had to get out before i ran out of warm weather, and decided i'd eat when i got back. that was an error, clearly.
8:57
i noticed when i woke up on friday morning that i'd gained a little shape, though.
8:58
what i got was one of those cliff bars, but i think they're different in canada, because the thing that attracted me to it was the whopping 4.5 mg of iron.
9:21
yeah, this is a substantively different product than is available in the us, it seems:
the warning sites on the internet are probably correct that you want to largely avoid these things. but, i had a strong intuition that i needed something with a lot of sugar and a lot of minerals, and it turns out that was right. if there was ever a time to actually eat one of these things...
it's like when i had the burger craving after the surgery. i only get a burger every couple of months, but i had an intense craving for it, and it's because i needed the fat, no doubt.
i've known for a while that my bouts of infrequent eating are no doubt having negative health effects, but this is the first direct evidence of it. i know better. but, i tend to push it. i shouldn't.
learn from me, don't emulate me.
and, take it easy on the energy bars.
9:28
the first signals seem to be that omicron is actually less severe than it's predecessors, indicating that we want to let it out-compete the other strains.
i mean, it's been long hypothesized that this virus will mutate into a weaker form to maximize it's reach. well, here we have it.
now, it should be pointed out that covid-19 has always been a mild virus, unless you happen to be very old or have a very weak immune system. so, this fact might not be as relevant as i'm making it out.
nonetheless, it's another reason why kneejerk travel restrictions are dumb - they don't work, but you could be wiping out a weaker strain if they did.
10:44
we probably want this to spread, and fast, and far and wide.
omicron for all!
10:45
so, i had to crash after i got something to eat and i'm feeling a little more alert. lesson learned: don't overdo it. and, now the weekend is officially blown.
i got most of the cleaning done. i have to do the bathroom, and i have to domyself.
for now, i want to sit down with a coffee, and i want to get the filing done, first. so, that's the night, and we'll see where it takes me.
19:36
alright, so i'm done the first run...which is just that....
the machine has been stable enough with just the chipset drivers. i'm going to turn it off and try to install the m-audio sound card - no drivers - and see what happens. the m-audio is a backup card, but it's good enough for what i'm doing, right now.
i have no choice but to do it like this. right now, the video card drivers are mildly suspect, but it's not clear.
23:05
well, it booted.
it's a little funny, but it booted. i'm going to let it sit for now, but if it crashes, i'll have to flash & reinstall.
i still don't know if i'm getting hacked, if there's something broken or both. i know it seemed to be ok with no video card drivers and the last time it crashed was after a video card driver install. i reseated the card in a different pci slot, but if there's a problem, it would seem to be the drivers.
let me get through the second run with this and then i can try to install the sound card drivers first. the sound card is more important than the video card...
23:22
sunday, december 5, 2021
i don't actually think that russia wants to invade ukraine, as it is in russia's self-interest to maintain a buffer state. it might rather the buffer state was east germany or austria, but it wants a buffer state, nonetheless. that region is notoriously hard to defend, so all they'd be doing by occupying ukraine is weakening their own defenses. rather, the russians want to draw nato away from eastern europe - which is the reason they invaded syria, i think. the russians seem to be wise to this kind of sucker tactic in eastern europe, and will resist being drawn in as best they can.
so, this is a more interesting development both because the russians would rather fight this war somewhere other than eastern europe and because it plays into the issue with china in the pacific. if american hegemony in the east pacific is weakening, is japan really up for grabs? and can the russians get there first?
i've talked about the need to build an alliance with russia against the chinese, and the stupidity of this american policy of confronting russia that just won't go away. the russians like us and want to be our friends; the chinese consider us an inferior race and just want to clear us off the land. we're idiots not to get this right, and doubly so because it's obvious: the russians actually have the upper hand, on top of it.
for the russians to set up here in japan is quite relieving in two senses, then. first, it indicates that it sees china as a competitor. and, second, it indicates that it foresees the west pulling it's head out of it's ass.
should the chinese make a move on japan, the russians are broadcasting that they will be there to stop them - and that is good news for the west. they're getting ahead of us on this...
2:00
the media wants to talk about taiwan.
the actual prize is demilitarized japan.
duh?
2:06
the chinese need living space.
to them, we're just a subhuman species of ape that's in the way.
2:29
so, this is new, and something i should have done before:
those are my own vocals, only.
there will be a third volume with:
5:01
fwiw, i'd rather deal with rapid testing at the border than proof of vaccination. i can at least accept that rapid testing is rational and upheld by the science; vaccination status is unreliable, as a testing metric, and arguably analogous grounds for a discrimination suit. vaccination doesn't seem to stop transmission much, either. on top of that, rapid testing doesn't require these id cards, which i'm never going to consent to carrying with me. nor am i able to download an app, if i'd even consent to it (and i never would.).
moving strictly to rapid testing - and ignoring vaccine status - would probably slow the process down a little, but it would at least be justifiable, and would at least working in catching people coming in and out.
i ultimately think this is a lot of nonsense and i'm really just waiting it out. but, if they're going to screen, they should screen the best way they can, and that means testing, not vaccine ids.
i expect to get vaccinated when i get a little closer to 50, as part of a routine shot.
22:27
bob dole doesn't think that bob dole dying is very funny.
22:33
unfortunately, i'm noticing some corruption in the files at bandcamp that needs to be corrected for.
so, i'm re-uploading every single file.
that's going to take a while.
i am making progress on filing, but this is necessarily time consuming, and i have to finish the cleaning, now.
23:07
monday, december 6, 2021
so, this is inri000, updated to remove any sound corruption:
0:01
this is inri001, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
0:49
this is inri002, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
2:04
this is inri003, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
2:15
this is inri004, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
2:44
this is inri005, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
3:34
this is inri006, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
5:22
ugh.
omicron is a variant that exists on both sides of the border and, if the reports about it's transmissability are true, is going to spread widely on both sides of the border, independently of any cross-border contamination. the border itself is an artificial barrier - a meaningless wall, that has no effect on the spread of anything. what it is is a checkpoint and, in terms of viruses, it's not a particularly useful one. it's more useful in catching criminals and political dissidents (and refugees) and things like that.
it would actually be far more useful to set up checkpoints at places where the virus is likely to spread, like churches and hospitals. what does the border have to do with anything? not much at all.
8:19
i actually spent more time sleeping this weekend than cleaning, but the cleaning is finally done. i told myself i'd get the cleaning done, take a shower, get some rest and then do the legal stuff. that was thursday.
i've eaten a lot since then and am feeling a lot better.
the filing is about 50% done, i think. and, this is so key for everything, because everything else will click in immediately.
so, it was a sleepy weekend, but so be it.
9:11
this is inri007, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
9:25
this is inri008, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
10:01
am i reading this correctly in it stating that these restrictions will not be lifted until we get to 99% vaccination?
what was the initial target? 70%?
the only way the restrictions will lift is if we generate a popular movement to force pressure on the government to lift them. they've made that very clear.
what happened to the vaccine passport, anyways?
it's an excuse by the religious far right to crack down on alcohol. wake up.
12:04
this is inri009, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
12:38
i got some sleep and now it's time to start this day i wanted to start on friday.
i have to do some legal stuff, first; let's try to get it done by the morning.
21:47
it seems like what this is really about is the hotel industry, which has scored a major government contract to create a quarantine industry.
likewise, the government just signed a multi-million dollar contract with lifelabs, and you can bet there will be lobbyists that set in as a result of that.
so, in addition to a security state, we now have a quarantine industry, attached to a medical-industrial complex. great.
21:54
listen, i don't write emo. i posted the vocal compilation, and it's a collection of shock rock postmodernism and (at times, intuitive) anarchist rants. there's maybe two poems that could be classified as 'beatnik'. the main focus of my vocals is and also has been political. very early vocal influences included roger waters, john lennon, michael stipe and bono. in high school, i listened to a lot of punk, in a wide range of sub-styles, but it was always vaguely political - from my first offspring cassettes when i was 13 to the major movement acts (dead kennedys, bad religion, skinny puppy) to my exit point in the late 90s, which was mostly centered around a silver mt zion. since then, 95% of the music composed has been instrumental. i really haven't listened to much of anything labeled rock music since about the year 2000.
i never listened to pavement or fugazi or anything like that - i largely found it amelodic and boring.
so, i skipped the entire emo thing and i frankly don't really understand what it really was. in fact, i was not really cognizant of it happening around me, at the time. i was more cognizant of what you might call nu-metal, but i didn't like it, either. you could run me off a list of 00s emo bands, and i would barely even recognize most of them. the few i would recognize, i'd mostly argue were trash. what i was actually listening to during that period was idm, post-rock and jazz - and almost all of it was instrumental. at the time, i would have told you that emo, which i would have just called punk, was largely childish and stupid - and pretty boring. or, i would have written off what you're calling emo as nu-metal, and not bothered further with it, by proxy. i was not open to exploring the genre and looking for hidden gems, at that time - i had made up mind that it was all corporate drivel and not worth my time.
there was a batch of post-hardcore bands that showed up about the year 2010 (a little before) that i found a little more interesting, because they were a lot more developed, both musically and thematically. they were mostly writing concept-records, which is something you more readily associate with progressive rock. but, i still wouldn't call any of it emo. in fact, i'd label the bulk of it grunge or alternative rock. and, it's had no development on the music i've produced, because it was released years after i wrote all of it.
the singer that i worked with for a few months at the end of 2001 and the start of 2002 dabbled in what could be called emo or screamo, although he would have no doubt preferred the term post-hardcore and would have broadly labeled himself an aimless, trendy bitch. he was a fan of all those bands that were running in the fake underground media - at the drive-in, neutral milk hotel, etc. i had no interest in any of that; i was following the brainwashed feed and listening to tortoise and autechre.
when i finalize lyrics for the remaining pieces, insofar as they will have lyrics, they will follow the outlines i've constructed, and none of them will be about relationships or, really, social relations of much of any sort. the isolated beatnik tracks are really discarded outtakes, strictly, and will appear in finalized forms as instrumentals, if they appear at all. a couple of the remaining pieces are broadly philosophical (there's a song about how they should have killed aristotle and spared socrates), but most of them are commentaries on (then) contemporary political events.
the bottom line is that i have spent my entire life single, by choice. i don't write about love or relationships because i haven't experienced any, and i don't really have a lot of interest in walking down that path. and, a part of the reason that i don't listen to lyrical music is that i can't relate to much of it.
so, yes - there's what could be called an emo singer on a handful of the recordings, but it was not me. i've stated in the past that i'll let sean identify himself, if he'd like to. if that's your interest, he ought to be your focus, and not me. my lyrics are generally focused on political commentary in a more traditionally punk framework, although i might rarely dabble in beatnik poetry, as well. the remaining tracks are focused mostly on political commentary and abstract philosophy, as i age into my mid-20s, in the reconstruction.
23:16
i actually remember thinking a lot of it was just rebranded hair metal. it was just this parade of bad cliches and awful lyrics that made me cringe over and over again....
and, it was escapist, which is very un-punk. we were in the middle of a serious political moment, after 9/11 and with the onset of a corporatist global trade regime. and, all these pampered children of the bourgeoisie wanted to talk about was their failed romances. what an aimless distraction.
i probably could have tolerated some of the worst genre characteristics (such as the pointless yelling) if it had some kind of artistic purpose, but essentially all of it was just this exercise in nihilism, in escapism, in the worst kinds of hedonistic excess.
and, that's why it struck me as hair metal, and not as punk.
you won't get that from me, so you're wasting your time, if you're looking for it. i haven't talked to sean in many years, but he was always very interested in my music collection, and became a fan of seminal and more artistically valid bands like swans under my influence, although i couldn't get him into a lot of it, either - he never liked sonic youth, for example. but, he was the hipster - he was the one into alexisonfire and silverstein and at the drive-in and glassjaw and animal collective and whatever else pitchfork liked this month.
i do believe he produced some post-rabit demos. what i remember hearing indicated a big post-thief thom yorke fetish (something i don't share. i think radiohead lost it after ok computer), and a strong animal collective influence. it also had a vague early no-wave sound, in the sense that he was completely tone deaf. he had picked up a cheap guitar along with a few boss effects and was frequently using his mom's old organ, which was in his basement. as would be expected, he seemed to be getting into the delay effects thing, as was popular at the time. i would broadly expect anything he's created since to follow existing trends, rather than attempt to evade or transcend them.
but, he might have a deep body of work now, for all i know - and i don't know. i really don't.
what i know is that if you're looking for an emo kid here, you're not going to find it. sean was much more that than i ever was; there may be some confusion about identity, despite a very clear attempt to carefully label everything, by myself. i've tried to make it very clear who did what, but people don't read anything, anymore, including liner notes, it would seem.
i'll be continuing the asimov readings this week.
23:56
tuesday, december 7, 2021
i tend to separate music into two purposes.
on the one hand, music can be purely abstract art, in which case it requires no thematic direction. the best classical music, jazz, electronic music and other mostly instrumental forms are simply to be experienced as sound, and there's nothing wrong with experiencing music strictly as a form of escapism, on that level.
on the other hand, music can be a type of propaganda. it can be agit-prop, it can be commentary, it can be satire, etc, but this type of music doesn't need to have characteristics of music to be interesting, as the function of it is strictly as propaganda. this is the value of folk, and derived forms of folk such as punk rock.
i tend to do both, and i tend to listen to both, but i expect either to function properly in their purpose. so, i'll criticize led zeppelin for being shitty artists, because they were - while listening to the much simpler dead kennedys, because their function as propaganda is exceedingly effective. what was labelled emo often failed for the same reason that led zeppelin failed, in the sense that it existed in a category error - it had no propagandistic value, and it had no redeeming musical characteristics.
if you're going to exist in a folk genre (which would also include hip-hop, although i don't listen to hip-hop), you should be exceedingly focused on the propagandistic value of your music. conversely, if you want to produce art for the sake of art - for pure listening value - you should realize that you need to transcend the limitations of folk culture, which are just going to make your music boring, if it's intended to be listened to as music. i'm not as ideological as your strictest punks or your most literal socialists on this point - the end point, after the revolution, when we have freedom and anarchy, when we abolish the proletariat, is to engage in art and science. that's why we want communism, in the end - so we can spend less time working and more time existing. but, that means that if your music is intended to be art - and not to be propaganda - then it had better be actually good.
and, as art, emo sucked - it co-opted a form meant as propaganda, and watered it down to the lowest form of artistic expression imaginable.
0:13
the way to save what we call emo as an artform is to write really elaborate lyrics, which is what la dispute was able to do, at least at first. stupid songs about getting dumped by your girlfriend aren't the same thing as hour long shakespearean epics with detailed character development, even if the end point of the hour long shakespearean epic is, in fact, getting dumped by your girlfriend. it's the same basic criteria: if you're going to create music as art, it has to actually qualify as art. there wasn't a lot of this that came out in the late 00s/early 10s, and it hasn't sustained itself because it's a difficult task, but there was a little bit of it. in hindsight, these are really exceptions in a genre that is almost impossible to work with.
0:52
i have training as a blues guitarist and as a classical guitarist, and i grew up playing grunge. those are the components of my guitar style, not anything else.
i write classical guitar songs ported to electric noise guitar.
1:58
this is inri010, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
this process might actually be helpful. if it takes an hour to get through each re-upload, i can spend ten-fifteen minutes going through the appropriate folder. so, i could conceivably be finished with the major part of the filing by the time i get the uploads done.
10 down, about 65 to go.
2:03
this is inri011, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
2:39
this is inri012, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
2:58
this is inri013, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
4:24
the huawei issue aside, it's not clear to me why china would be interested in influencing canadian public opinion. however, it's very clear why the canadian government would be interested in influencing public opinion.
i think the right way to read this is that, using a model based on similar attempts by the democrats in the united states to shut down dissenting media, the canadian government is trying to emulate the kind of media control that exists in china. in essence, the canadian ruling elite is looking at the kind of control that exists in china and saying "we want that here, too". then, they're using this fabricated myth of chinese media manipulation to justify their coming attempts at cracking down on press freedom.
i keep pointing this out: if you're concerned about the far right in canada, look no further than justin trudeau and the liberal party, as they would be the most dangerous far-right extremist group in the country, by far.
5:22
the chinese may be interested in influencing the canadian government or canadian industry, sure.
but, they don't care about canadian voters and aren't going to waste time with something like social media. they're going to send lobbyists and other infiltrators as close to the top as they can get.
the chinese are incredibly hostile to democracy, you have to remember. it's an empire, and the culture is strictly imperialistic - strictly hierarchical - in nature. they could not care less about the viewpoints of the proletariat - they are strictly interested in influencing capital.
5:26
so, if the canadian government starts waving around the chinese bogeyman as an excuse to clamp down on press freedoms and civil liberties, nobody should be fooled - they are concerned about canadian dissidents and activists, not about infiltration by the chinese.
5:28
this is inri013, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
6:18
i'm cutting the cyproterone again this afternoon to (1/2, 1/2, 1/2, 1/4) over 36 hours, from 1/2 every 9 hours.
am i ready for this?
it was the point.
i just hope it doesn't kill me, one way or the other.
6:53
everything i've read suggests 1/2 is supposed to be as good as 1, in terms of actual suppression, but that's about leydig cells and not adrenal glands.
regardless, it's going down to 1/4 that is the first real decrease in dose. as you can see, i'm doing it very slowly....
6:59
and 99% of these cases will pass the hosts within days, with next to no effects.
this is why it's so important to not go to the hospital every time you sneeze: these hypochondriacs and drama queens are ruining the lives of innocent workers.
9:46
stop getting tested. stop participating. just suck it up - it's a cold. it'll be gone in 24 hours.
this is what happens when you give the health authorities here an inch - they take a mile.
don't give them the excuse - just ignore it.
9:50
this is inri014, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
9:58
this is inri015, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
i was supposed to do legal stuff today, and clearly i'm not. i'm in the groove on this filing, taking advantage of the working machine and trying to catch up to the process i described early this morning.
the second run is going through the source material for inri000-inri074 and
1) making sure it's complete
2) making sure any files related to period 3 are pulled out and categorized correctly
3) making sure all files are mirrored, for redundancy
the third run will be going through the years 2003-2021 and making sure everything for period 3 is pulled out.
the fourth run will be pure redundancy.
at that point, i should be able to click back into the three phases in a smooth manner, as i'll be able to pull data out of the file, put it back into the file and then store it when i'm done with it with greater clarity and ease.
13:07
this is inri016, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
13:35
the corruption is, unfortunately, returning to re-uploaded sound at the bandcamp site, and i'm remembering back to the fucker at the mixing desk, recognizing all of the apparent attempts to control my machine and putting 2+2 together.
the bottom line is this: if i can't present my mixes as i want to present them, they will not be presented at all. i don't want to resort to it, but i may have to unpublish everything as a means of protest.
i've unfortunately had to unpublish my first lp. i will be replacing the files with the corrected masters until the site stops corrupting them. if it will not relent, i will have to start unpublishing further documents, sequentially.
i'm not blaming bandcamp, exactly - i think this is exceedingly unusual for them, and i think it's deeper than them. i don't fully understand what's happening, but it's consistent with a broader narrative of outside control. somebody wants control over my body, over my thoughts and over my art, too. in the end, it's just a lot of resources wasted over what's truly a set of trivialities - especially considering that my tendency is to fight against the current, rather than go along with it. i will fight something like this out of spite.
i thought merely replacing the files would be enough to get the point across, but, again, they don't seem to have any kind of respect for individual autonomy, or artistic expression, whoever it is that they are.
if i have to, i'll put the files up at a google drive share, instead, with a direction to wire me money. it's not like i'm selling a ton of things over bandcamp, anyways.
21:42
at specific point is a question as to the bass response on the mixes. i desire a minimal bass response, because most of the detail and interesting parts of the music are actually in the high end. i also dislike guitar parts with exaggerated low ends, and prefer my guitars to have a tinny, mono sort of sound. i like brittle, trebly, fuzzy sorts of digital distortion, and not deeper, crunchier sorts of amp distortion. i spent a lot of time getting that to sound correctly.
if the end user wants to play the music through a subwoofer, i suppose they have that choice, but i would not recommend it. rather, i would recommend that the music be listened to on as flat a system as is possible and through an entirely flat pair of headphones, and further that little attempt be made to exaggerate the low end, as the actual music is mostly in the upper mids.
i do not desire to be an artist that produces music intended for a deep bass response. i do not listen to or have an interest in bass music. and, i don't want it to sound chunky or analog or heavy - i want it to sound airy and digital and sharp and light.
21:48
this is a synth pop record created in the 90s that should sound vaguely like a tears for fears or genesis record, but with a much more digital sounding recording footprint. it's not contemporary music, and should not sound like it. it's not intended for use in car stereos or nightclubs, it's intended for basement or bedroom listening through headphones. it may be music for reading, for doing homework, for doing employment, for exercising, for cleaning, for travelling, for shopping or just for active listening. but, it's meant for an alienated individual to listen to alone through headphones, and not to be experienced in a group setting with other people, through loudspeakers.
21:55
another point of ambiguity is the question of compression and limiting. the music is presented with a wide dynamic range, which is a conscious compositional decision. that keeps getting flattened out, and squished down, removing the changes in volume in the mix. it would seem that whomever is doing this doesn't understand the concept of mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte, and rather thinks everything should be presented at the same volume, and the same level of aggression. i know what they're doing - they're putting it through a limiter, and they're doing it because they think they're cleaning it up. but, they're just ruining the detail and subtlety. the changes in volume are intentional parts of the composition, not relics to be removed in mastering.
i suppose it is possible that i'm getting upset about the playback process, and the answer is to realize that the playback algorithm is necessarily flawed. i might be getting upset about the downsampling done by the server, and deducing something is being altered. ok. so, i'm going to try to download the files after i reupload them and see if i can mathematically compare them to the correct versions on my hard drive.
and, if i have to accept that, so be it.
but, i actually expect to download altered files, and i'm going to be very upset if i do.
22:05
threatening sanctions on russia for invading ukraine makes biden look tough for his domestic audience, which is lost in archaic cold war thinking, and look very stupid, abroad.
just remember: he's doing it to satiate the rabidly irrational russophobia in his political base.
it's completely divorced from reality - just empty bloviating, to win votes.
my guess is that they probably mostly talked about missile defense, which is a more serious and more realistic concern.
22:45
to be clear: i think nato expansion into the russian sphere was a strategic mistake, and i neither want to spend a single dime nor lose a single life protecting the west slavs from the east slavs. we have no strategic interest in doing such a thing at all, and it's a simple geopolitical inevitability that the russians will regain their influence there, via peaceful means or via violent ones, eventually.
latvia, lithuania, estonia, ukraine, poland, romania, hungary, slovakia and the czech republic are all clearly in the russian sphere and should be abandoned by nato, at once.
we have far more pressing concerns defending ourselves against islamic imperialism and arab colonialism.
23:01
i didn't skip bulgaria or the former yugoslavia. nato has an interest in keeping russia out of the mediterranean, and expansion in to the balkans is reasonable. likewise, re-partitioning germany would be daft.
but, nobody should give a fuck about the poles or ukrainians, who are just deluding themselves into thinking they aren't russians, to begin with. they belong in the russian sphere, and the situation will be more stable when that's realized.
23:08
i have about as much sympathy for polish or ukrainian nationalism as i do for albertan or quebecois separatism.
23:10
wednesday, december 8, 2021
is russia justified in moving troops to it's border?
it seems like a stupid question, right? when would they not be justified in doing that?
but, do the russians have a legitimate argument here, regardless of their absolute sovereignty?
well, the last time the democrats were in control, they pulled a sucker move on moscow, which led to a coup in kiev that destabilized the eastern part of the country, leading to an influx of refugees. i would say that the russians are justified in their reaction for no other reason than the refugee influx created by the last attempts by washington to destabilize ukraine.
but, it's clear enough that the ukrainians were being urged to draw the russians in. one of the things that the illegitimate government in kiev did after the coup was create voluntary militias of white supremacists (and ukrainian nationalism, which is what the west is backing, is fundamentally white supremacist in character) to send to their eastern front. if armies of white nationalists on russia's western front aren't a justified nightmare scenario in moscow, i don't know what is.
the russians have a right to self-defense, and they have reasonable grounds to think it's a legitimate concern. for that reason, a show of force is justified.
but, don't get confused - it's a deterrent. it's not a bluff, it's not a threat, it's a deterrent. and, i'm sure ukraine knows the outcome of any stupid choices, on their behalf.
the russians need a buffer, and due to the expansion of nato to the east, it has to be ukraine. it's not preferable, but it's not up for debate, unless they can pull a few of the former easterm bloc countries out of nato, first.
and, this is why i've said for years that the russians should be focused on politically destabilizing countries like poland and romania to try to put governments in place that will withdraw from nato, first. it is only then that it would make sense to push the buffer westward.
conversely, if russia finds itself with nato in ukraine, it has lost it's buffer, which is an existential threat to it that would require invasion.
so, this narrative about russia invading ukraine really is just intended for domestic consumption - at least for now. it would be too strategically dangerous to eliminate the buffer. they need to push nato out of the eastern bloc, first.
1:34
is russia the lesser evil here?
they're a more rational actor, with a less belligerent character. if it comes down to it, the world may be better off. and, they tend to end up as a tipping force.
but, this is crazy - nobody wants that.
and, i expect that a future commander in chief that isn't stuck in the 60s will realize the need for collaboration, in place of conflict.
1:43
don't tell me it's ageist; there's real consequences of electing out of touch old men. we need to get these living fossils that are stuck in past eras out of power and move on from the cold war.
1:45
does ukraine have any chance at all?
no.
it'll be over in a few days.
2:00
so, i got the files to null, and now it sounds normal again. i'm going to carry through with what i was doing, regardless, because i want to make sure the tracks are truly normalized.
if somebody changed something, thank you for listening. pun intended. please do not revert to the previous corrupt mixes and please do not alter any more of my files.
and, if i was just imagining it, all i can do is keep going.
3:50
ok.
so, i can't listen to everything to be sure i didn't miss anything - i'm just going to go back to the start and reupload everything again.
please just leave it be.
if i wanted somebody's help, i'd ask for it. i don't. really.
4:29
i will listen to a few things randomly, just to be sure, so don't fuck with it.
4:33
my stomach has shrunk a little, meaning my big meals feel like big meals again, and i'm a little bloated after lunch. that's ok. it means i'm reading a little in bed.
i've pointed out that baley/daneel are obviously sherlock holmes & watson. it's elementary.
but, are baley/daneel likewise the models for kirk and spock?
i can see a lot of spock in daneel, certainly.
7:01
while i don't care much for competitive sports, boycotting the olympics is juvenile and should be resisted.
12:17
i'm more willing to sit up, now, but now i'm into the story.
so, this is inri000, updated (again) to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.:
12:43
i should have waited to comment on the second robot novel, so i'm going to hold off on this one, but my initial take is that the 25 year time lag is a sort of a clean break, conceptually. they're the same characters, and i'm sure the story will develop similarly, but it's also a very different type of novel, that is reflective of changes in the genre over the period. in the 40s and 50s, science fiction was just a mechanism for dystopian literature, so it was not fundamentally different than other types of literature, really, it just had a different setting. and, that would have been true through the 60s (you can really see that in the initial run of star trek, which frequently played on everything in the traditional canon of literature, from shakespeare to classical mythology), up until star wars, which sort of broke everything and left the genre in a juvenile state of focusing on special effects, like any other adventure film. this third robot novel was written and published in the early 80s, in the midst of the major shift in the genre that was happening.
asimov is adjusting by focusing more on how he sees the technology of the future, making it more of an exercise in futurism, which is what the standard was at the time in the literature, if not in the films. you see that kind of thing come out later in, like, cronenberg films, but not in the early 80s. and, i should point out that while daneel predated spock by a good distance, this text was written right in the middle of the star wars and star trek boom of the early 80s - and you can tell.
i don't remember the text and don't think i actually read it as a child, so i don't know the plot. but, i'm not expecting the same kind of allegorical treatment - i'm expecting a sort of empty exercise in futurism that will leave me sort of bored, as an adult.
i said that last time, though, and realized in the end that it was clearly about marxist alienation, even if it was sort of blurry. so, we'll see what happens.
12:55
actually, i seem to have my timeline wrong for cronenberg - he was earlier than i thought.
but, you get the point.
12:58
so, this is inri001, updated (again) to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.:
14:29
no, listen.
biden is clearly demonstrating himself as potentially the most serious threat to global peace since jfk. we may very well be closer to a serious nuclear confrontation than at any time since the cuban missile crisis.
this is not due to any increased threat from the russians or the chinese, both of whom are more predisposed towards the west than at any other time in their recent history. this dangerous moment we're in right now is due strictly to a president that is clearly off his rocker and needs to be removed from power due to it. he's living out some kind of cold war fantasy and maybe it's answering the question nobody could figure out - why did joe biden want to be president, anyways?
it's starting to look like he's been fantasizing about starting a war for who knows how long - 30 years? 40 years? 50 years?
the mere premise of "russia and china" is like pre sino-sovet split thinking. russia and china are not the same thing, and the us policy should be to set them off against each other, not to try to fight them both at the same time. the idea that the united states can win and fight a war against the combined forces of asia is beyond stupid, it's suicidal.
we should not be falling in line behind this dangerous lunatic that joe biden is proving himself to be - we should be pushing back as hard as we can, and offering some kind of alternative strategy for peace. i'm going to call on the germans, the indians, the japanese, the french and the british to unite and produce a statement condemning american recklessness and demanding a change in course, before it's too late.
the path that biden is putting the world on is one of imminent nuclear war, and if the world blindly follows then that is what we will get. now is the time to reject us leadership, and even to push for a necessary coup in the united states, before it's too late.
15:14
thursday, december 9, 2021
i had to sleep.
here's some rough notes about half-way through.
- playing with modern existence in terms of humans not going outside. if the first two robot novels were allegories about marxist theory, this one might be more of a commentary on modern existence.
- check laws of humanics in subtexts [in expanded robot]
- baley frequently presented as child-like, juvenilized by earth society, seeking to escape the womb
- asimov may have been coerced to return to writing fiction within the context of the blockbuster scifi films of the late 70s and early 80s, given that he was responsible for so many of the ideas underlying them. this text goes over a lot of previous ideas for that apparent reason.
- freudian undertones in the sex life. not really interested.
- the reflection on the sex life of aurorans seems to be a reflection of asimov's views on sexuality within the bourgeois elite in new york city, specifically, in the 70s. asimov seems to be suggesting that bourgeois american culture has overdone it on the sex, and reduced it to something meaningless and boring - so much so that the promise of unhindered sex with robots offers an escape from the ubiquitous mundanity of sex with people. i have to admit some sympathy with this perspective. it is the closest thing to a purpose in the text. again: the underlying society is broadly communist, but this is a pretty marxist critique of bourgeois sexuality.
- of the three planets - earth, solaria, aurora - i'd have to admit a strongest affinity with solaria. but, they all represent a potentially communist dystopia: the overcrowded kibbutz of earth, the alienation of solaria and the empty hedonism of aurora.
- asimov introduces a conflict between the pro-auroran globalists and the pan-humanity humanists, and you'd have to imagine that asimov (acting director of the humanist society) would be most sympathetic to humanists. it's a bit of a hint as to who represents his own views, in truth - something that might be different in 1980 than it was in 1955. asimov's subtle slights on baley may be another indication that he's changing hosts in the story, so to speak, and that he now looks down on baley, whereas he previously saw him as his own voice. asimov's globalists - a vanguard elite that puts itself first and looks down on the broader swath of humanity - is not all that different than the contemporary concept of "globalist", which comes from a strange merging of far-left and far-tight anti-elitism. asimov seems to want to present humanism as a truer from of egalitarianism, a less corrupt concept of liberalism and a more authentic left. fastolfe's "decency" is presented in this context of representing humanism. asimov and i may quibble over details as to what the anti-vanguard left ought to look like (he was a liberal, and i'm an anarchist), but we seem to agree on the need to present a counter-left as a movement against vanguardism. but, once again, this is about leftist infighting - it's not some broad ideological discourse. only the primitivist utopians on earth seem to offer any opposition to the spread of communism throughout the galaxy.
3:32
biden's "summit for democracy" is in truth a cottage retreat for his client states, none of whom have any meaningful concept of actual democracy implemented in their respective nations.
the nations involved should take the opportunity to talk amongst themselves about ways to move forward without a belligerent, hostile america desperately clinging to it's dwindling monopoly on force, and using the threat of catastrophic violence to uphold it.
5:15
joe biden is in many ways a fitting personification of america in the crippling, dying stages of late capitalism - senile, weak, incompetent and delusional. he walks into the room with his cane and waves it around, looking to assert top dog status, like a terminally ill churchillian clown, apparently out of touch enough with reality to think that the louder he barks, the scarier he is. and, he very well may end up dying of old age, before he's removed from power.
we need to look past this charade, and get off this sinking ship, as best we can.
now is not the time to fall behind the leadership of an incompetent, senile, out of touch buffoon - now is the time to put the dying alpha out of it's misery, and build new alliances that will reflect the future, rather than the past. now is the time to strike, to throw off the yoke of american despotism and reassert a concept of real sovereignty.
that doesn't mean aligning with china - this is not a false choice. there are other options, and we should be actively pursuing them.
5:23
we should kick the united states out of the g8 and out of nato.
6:10
telling an employer that they can't hire an unvaccinated person is an unconstitutional overreach of executive power and shouldn't even be being thought about. it's absolutely outrageously tyrannical. and, this is from a guy that wants to host a summit on democracy? he should be hosting a summit on fascism.
i could support something like putting signs up on a door indicating whether the employees are or are not vaccinated, and then letting the public independently measure the risk factor.
but, the government should be rightly told to fuck off for enforcing these kinds of far right, authoritarian rules - and it's a dangerous moment for democracy in the united states, when 48 senators are willing to vote in favour of this kind of massive rights violation.
19:03
so, let me understand this.
1. we want vaccine passports because they will reduce healthcare expenses (basically).
2. actual mathematical modelling demonstrated that that was clearly naive. empirical evidence has proven it was wrong.
3. cases are increasing, despite the widespread use of vaccine passports.
4. therefore, we need more vaccine passports.
no.
this is the actual logic:
1. people have too much freedom, and are too hard to track.
2. we need some way to keep track of their movements.
3. we're going to force them to carry a computer chip that tracks their movement, and give the data to the surveillance state.
4. this surveillance tactic has been effective in tracking the movement of people that used to be free
5. so, let's increase the amount of surveillance that people are under, for the benefit of the state.
we're being very patient and polite, and it's going to lead to our enslavement.
what is happening is the literal definition of fascism - sacrifices for the collective good - and we have to stand up and fight back, to retain our individual rights.
so, don't tell me about "democracy summits", when my rights are being permanently systematically redacted under the pretenses of fighting a mild virus, by governments that do not care about individual freedoms.
we have to get mad, and we have to put pressure on them to pull back. they're not going to relent. they're not going to give up. you give them a centimetre, and they take everything - because they'd have you chained to your (virtual) desk, if they could.
in ontario, there's three particular concerns that our right-wing government, which was elected primarily by an uprising of muslim extremists trying to reverse the modernized sex-ed curriculum, are focusing on:
1) they are trying to permanently end the social consumption of alcohol
2) they are trying to permanently ban any sort of dancing, however benign, in public
3) they are trying to track the movement of free individuals from place to place, to build databases to be used by the surveillance state. it's the next step up from being tied to your phone like it's your babysitter.
this is what's happening, and it's what we have to adjust to.
don't even waste your time trying to understand what they're saying - it's bullshit. see through it.
23:57
friday, december 10, 2021
the highest risk setting is not strip clubs, it's religious businesses.
so, they should be shutting down religious businesses (by which i mean churches, temples and mosques), as the first step.
but, we have a right-wing government that's being driven by the religious right and is more interested in punishing what it perceives of as sinners than following science or evidence.
0:03
why did the vaccine passport system fail to prevent further lockdowns and restrictions?
the modelling i posted was for large events, and i'm sure that's a big part of it.
but, the simple reality is that the kind of social interactions that the religious right is keying on - public consumption of alcohol, eating "forbidden foods" in public and public dancing - really aren't what's driving the pandemic.
rather, cases go up when the following things happen:
1) the weather changes, forcing people to spend more time inside with family
2) religious celebrations, which is again about family.
you're most likely to catch this from a family member at a get-together, or from attending a religious business like a mosque, and not from grabbing a beer at a strip club - and it's partly because the people at the strip club tend not to have close relationships with their families.
the simple answer is that the reason that VACCINE PASSPORTS FAILED !!!!`!1 is that they were designed to reduce types of social interactions that weren't actually responsible for spreading the virus. meanwhile, the virus continued to spread via religious gatherings, like it always did.
but, the government doesn't want to upset it's base of conservative religious voters, so it's blaming it on strippers. and, the opposition is basically trying to win the same voters. the root cause of the problem is the change in demographics in the country brought on by mass migration of the religious. so, we're stuck in a neo-puritan society that is going to get worse and we're going to keep praying and doing stupid things instead of getting to the root of the problem here, as it is so often is - we need to abolish the faith of the religious to maintain our freedom, and we don't have much time to do it.
but, we don't have a majority, so marching isn't working. until we can change the views of the religious, we're going to have to set up underground networks that evade government control, instead. we're going to have to go underground...
well, you're going to have to go underground. i'm too old, and they know who i am. i will continue to broadcast from this space, or some space linked from it. but, please do not try to contact me. i'm under 24/7 surveillance, and my life is tied into my art. i'm too old to start over.
0:33
in canada, the restrictions on civil rights that we're seeing are not going to end in the spring.
they're not going to end next spring.
they're not going to end five springs from now, either.
these are permanent social changes brought on by changing demographics, and a part of a broad swing in canadian society to the far right. if you cannot survive under these conditions, you need to go underground, or get out.
0:42
in the end, the forces of secularism and science always defeat religious backwardsness. but, in canada, we may have to deal with a major setback, and it may be extended.
the future of this country seems very bleak, indeed.
2:35
also, note that people bizarrely actually seem to like the term "security state" nowadays. it makes them feel "safe". that's where we're at, nowadays.
i'd advise avoiding the term, as the fuckers have co-opted it.
surveillance state is a more unsettling term, it seems.
3:38
ok, i got through the third volume (the robots of dawn), and i don't have much to add, nor do i think that the text was very worthwhile. i might even label broad swaths of it to be worthless pornography with no redeemable qualities that probably shouldn't have been published. so, do i even want to review this at all? i'm being comprehensive...
but, i'm not really excited about it, or have much of an urge to type about it. and, i don't want this to turn into a chore.
i think the key point is really realizing the 25 year difference. whereas the asimov that i knew and i respected was writing for a contemporary audience in the 40s and 50s, there were dramatic social changes that occurred in the 60s and 70s, and asimov would seem to be required to adjust to them for this book published in the 80s, if not voluntarily than no doubt by his publisher. so, that 25 year time lag is a sort of a clean break, conceptually. they're the same characters to start, but this novel is really twice as long as it needs to be because it needs to house certain types of additional characters, which people are expected to be more able to relate to, as per the norms of mass marketed fiction that developed at that time. so, the aloof and likeable solarian (gladia) is transformed into a somewhat disgusting, contemptible slut that has nothing worthwhile to say, including about her orgasm (why put that in your robot novel? who wants to read that kind of smut? who cares?). further, they had to include some kind of 70s hipster kid with ironic facial hair that's unable to get laid, to try to appeal to a certain segment of reader. none of this adds anything to the specific story or to the broader arch of the narrative and probably should have been cut - if the truth no doubt wasn't that it was included on the urging of the publisher, in the first place. so, asimov becomes a sad reflection of the empty society that he's writing from, at the dawn of reaganism. hey, could you prove reagan wasn't a robot? he survived a bullet, didn't he?
so, i'm not reacting well to the more contemporary style, i'm finding myself missing the classic asimov that's above gratuitous sex and not interested in empty plot development. in the 40s and 50s, science fiction was just a mechanism for dystopian literature, so it was not fundamentally different than other types of literature, really, it just had a different setting. and, that would have been true through the 60s (you can really see that in the initial run of star trek, which frequently played on everything in the traditional canon of literature, from shakespeare to classical mythology), up until star wars, which sort of broke everything and left the genre in a juvenile state of focusing on special effects, like any other adventure film. this third robot novel was written and published in the early 80s, in the midst of the major shift in the genre that was happening. the reality is that it appears that asimov was actually coerced (perhaps by large dollar figures) to return to writing fiction within the context of the blockbuster scifi films of the late 70s and early 80s, given that he was responsible for so many of the ideas underlying them. for that reason, the text seems to lack the more allegorical writing of his earlier years - it's just a run-on story about the adventures of an earthling and two robots, designed for the all-of-a-sudden very large market for vacuous adventurist science fiction.
this text also goes over a lot of previous ideas for the apparent reason of acting as a subtle means of advertising for his previous stories. the calvin references work their way into the story, but they don't add anything to it.
that said, asimov isn't entirely embracing this new reality, either. the critique of the sex life of aurorans seems to be a reflection of asimov's views on sexuality within the bourgeois elite in new york city, specifically, in the 70s. asimov seems to be suggesting that bourgeois american culture has overdone it on the sex, and reduced it to something meaningless and boring - so much so that the promise of unhindered sex with robots offers an escape from the ubiquitous mundanity of sex with people. i have to admit some sympathy with this perspective. this marxist critique of bourgeois sexuality (in an auroran society that is otherwise broadly communist - the same confusing juxtaposition that is in the second novel) is the closest thing to a purpose in the text, although he drops the narrative about a third of the way in, and instead detours off into pointless character development, to expand the length of the text for no real apparent reason, other than to try to create these characters that are supposed to generate feelings of identity in the reader. i might actually suggest that asimov may have been trying to write a third robot novel in the same framework as the first two (they all represent a potential failure point leading to a communist dystopia: the overcrowded kibbutz of earth, the marxist alienation of solaria and the empty bourgeois hedonism of vanguardist aurora), but got cut-off halfway by a publisher trying to create something that would appeal to star wars fans, who co-opted the novel into just aimlessly going on for hundreds of pages of empty action/adventure nonsense. sadly...
so, if the point of the story is that it's supposed to be about the emptiness of capitalist excess and unchecked bourgeois hedonism, it is even less cohesive and less developed than the second volume. but, the idea is there - if just barely. i can identify no further discernible purpose in the 430 page paperback, besides to waste the reader's time. the middle section really wasn't necessary - he could have gone from gladia to amadiro and maybe should have.
i think it's important to point out that asimov is repeatedly pretty rough on baley, and sort of passive aggressive with daneel, indicating that he might not be so excited about these characters any longer. i'd strongly suspect he was toying with killing them off. in fact, daneel has a very minor part in this story; the more important robot is giskard. baley is repeatedly treated as a fool that is unable to fend for himself, as a consequence of living in the kibbutz; there are frequent allusions to his child-like state, to the robots as his caretakers and even to gladia, at one point, as his mother. baley is not killed in the end, but he doesn't appear in the fourth installment, which i'm now dreading reading.
in terms of his broader narrative, asimov introduces a conflict between the pro-auroran globalists and the pan-humanity humanists that the humanists win, in this installment. you'd have to imagine that asimov (acting director of the humanist society) would be most sympathetic to humanists. it's a bit of a hint as to who represents his own views, in truth - something that might be different in 1980 than it was in 1955. asimov's subtle slights on baley may be another indication that he's changing hosts in the story, so to speak, and that he now looks down on baley, whereas he previously saw him as his own voice. asimov's globalists - a vanguard elite that puts itself first and looks down on the broader swath of humanity - is not all that different than the contemporary concept of "globalist", which comes from a strange merging of far-left and far-tight anti-elitism. asimov seems to want to present humanism as a truer from of egalitarianism, a less corrupt concept of liberalism and a more authentic left. fastolfe's "decency" is presented in this context of representing humanism. asimov and i may quibble over details as to what the anti-vanguard left ought to look like (he was a liberal, and i'm an anarchist), but we seem to agree on the need to present a counter-left as a movement against vanguardism. but, once again, this is about leftist infighting - it's not some broad ideological discourse. only the primitivist utopians on earth seem to offer any opposition to the spread of communism throughout the galaxy.
so, i'd have to broadly describe this as disappointing, but i really do get where it's coming from, and in some ways it might have been impossible to avoid. i suppose that if you want to read the whole thing then you can't skip it, but i'll tell you: you're not missing much if you did.
5:20
somebody's going to tell me i slandered the book :/.
5:38
...because when something fails empirically, you should do more of it.
fucking idiots.
hey, here's an idea: vaccine certificates are dumb, and you're really dumb if you still haven't figured it out yet. do you need somebody to draw you a picture, or did somebody drop you on your head as a child?
12:30
to an extent, this is helpful in the long run, even if it's frustrating in the short run.
vaccine passports are the perfect example of the kind of "common sense" approach that seems obvious to stupid people but that the science thoroughly rejects as ineffective. it's actually quite characteristic of the general strategies taken. another example is the travel ban. these tactics are marketed as "following the science", but they're the exact opposite of it: they are explicitly ignoring the science and actively, aggressively pursuing strategies that the science says not to do. because common sense.
the people pushing for these anti-science measures are not data-driven, so empirical demonstration is of minimal utility - as demonstrated by the fact that, the more vaccine passports fail, the more we get (it's the same with masks - the more we prove that masks don't work, the more mask laws we get).
but, at some point, 50 years from now, somebody separated from the situation will look at the data and say "these idiots weren't following the science, they were following their intuition, and what they felt 'made sense' to them. and, they were wrong. they should have followed the science, not their intuition.".
i'm sorry that we all have to suffer their unending stupidity.
but, this is going to get worse, if we don't find a way to revolt, either actively or passively.
12:36
i pointed out that the models couldn't predict what was happening because it was a consequence of a changing climate. the models are largely based on the idea of interpreting the past.
it's fashionable to shit on weather forecasters, but they're usually relatively correct. these flubbed forecasts, recently, have been increasing, and all in the same direction. it's just more evidence that the climate is changing, and very fast.
so, what can they do? they'll need to adjust their models so that they're more reflective of changing phenomenon: changing currents, changing oscillations. the past may no longer be the guide it was once.
my take is that they had a small time window to get their cold winter in, as everybody agrees that it should be mild after the new year. so, if we don't get a cold snap before saturnalia, we probably won't get one at all.
14:02
yes, it is exceedingly likely that cases will increase dramatically over the next few weeks, although the milder weather may act as a mild stop.
i've been clear from the start that, short of locking up the weak, which it has not done as good a job doing as it could (see the widespread blistering reports on conditions in geriatric homes), the government actually really has a minimal role to play, here. and, i think that's one of the missing factors in comparing the realities in the west to those in china: for all the despotic, tyrannical, authoritarian tendencies of the chinese government, they are also a more collectivist culture, and they actually really don't need to be told to take care of their own, they do it instinctually.
the bottom line is that if you care about granny then you won't see her face to face this year. you can no longer plead ignorance, either.
and, it's that simple: if you don't want to kill your loved ones, don't see them, physically. call or skype them, or do whatever you call skype on your proprietary platforms.
and, get used to it, too - because this is going to be going on for a while.
conversely, if you're in a high risk category, get the fucking hint and stay inside. your vaccines probably haven't "worn out", but (1) if you weren't tested for antibodies, you don't actually know how your immune system responded and (2) the data is clear that the circulating variants are different enough that the chances of vaccination protecting you are very much reduced. i've previously suggested a coin toss, and that's probably not a low ball, in terms of raw numbers, even if the virus doesn't kill you (and while we don't have the studies, my strong suspicion is that almost everybody who does well after catching covid after getting vaccinated would have beaten it easily, anyways). your mask won't save you - it will reduce transmission by at most 10%. and, what distancing has done is simply make the virus more contagious.
if you're in the category of people that this might or will kill, you gotta just fucking stay inside, and you gotta realize that you're not just saving your own life by doing so, but you're both preventing further strain on the system (which can save the lives of those with and without covid, such as cancer patients, who are seeing their life expectancy fall) and minimizing the likelihood of further catastrophic shutdowns. it is the responsibility of the at-risk population to realize the danger they're in and adjust. no government dictates can do that for them.
i realize i'd be a fool to place a wager on stubborn old people spontaneously becoming reasonable en masse, but that's my plea, nonetheless.
yes, you might think about getting vaccinated, but you probably already have been. what's really important is that you just stay inside as much as you can. you should really even be asking your kids to do groceries and other errands, as much as possible...
15:00
6 km is a reasonable morning walk, really.
if i was her, i couldn't justify spending money on a bus pass when i only have to walk 6 km...
that said, i actually think that windsor is particularly well suited for an electric rail line, given that we really only have one main road, east to west. i've been up and down tecumseh during rush hour and don't understand why people aren't using the freeway. reducing the number of lanes by introducing streetcars might convince more people to use the freeway for cross city traffic, which is of course what it's for.
15:16
you know, if oil prices stay high, we might see some inflation, after all.
it's another reason to transition off oil.
15:56
so, what's going on with me?
i was finally making progress on the filing, and then i got distracted by that book. it was one of the lengthier asimov texts. worse, i tried to plow through it in one sitting and had to sleep repeatedly, instead. i don't want to say i lost days, because that was supposed to be for last week...
so, what do i need done this weekend?
1) the fourth robot novel, robot and empire
2) at least two of the three empire novels
3) i am behind on the actual journal writing
4) i have to get the legal writing done by monday morning
5) filing
6) re-uploading, and checking: are the files stable or corrupt?
that's a lot.
let's focus on 5 & 6, first.
16:08
saturday, december 11, 2021
sunday, december 12, 2021
this isn't worth it.
i'm going to oppose these tariffs as an unjustified retaliation and call on the various stakeholders to instead embrace a concept of economic sovereignty. some level of adjustment is no doubt justified, and it may have negative effects on american producers, as collateral. but, if we're talking about putting tariffs on unrelated american goods to save auto sector jobs? no - that's not worth it, and that kind of concept of collective sacrifice is fascistic and should be rejected by voters.
it's not fair to ask everybody else to suffer to save some jobs in the auto sector.
i vote that we cut our losses and move on.
15:22
further, punitive tariffs on the united states is hardly going to work in saving those auto sector jobs.
there is an easy prediction here: we will suffer terribly. in fact, that's what the minister is saying - this will only harm ourselves, and we'll need to get used to it.
no - i'm not going to get used to it.
it's a perfect example of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, and the liberals should not follow through on their empty and rather ludicrous threats, that will only harm canadians, with no effect on the americans, that we're bizarrely trying to punish.
we signed an awful trade deal, and we got screwed. instead of throwing hysterical temper tantrums and pretending that we have leverage, we need to deal with reality and move on.
15:26
i'd support tearing up nafta, or whatever they want to call it nowadays, altogether, though.
we should be insisting on a bilateral trade deal with the united states, and likewise seek a bilateral deal with mexico.
so, if they want to pull out of nafta, that is a win. but, starting a trade war with the united states over auto jobs is stupid, and i strongly oppose shooting ourselves in the foot in that manner.
15:35
that's a good idea.
15:38
ideally, surgery would be happening 24/7.
15:42
so, i lost saturday again and am going to need to take it easy today again, too, although i don't foresee it'll be nearly as bad.
(edit: i started this on sunday morning, and ended up sleeping for much of the day)
i wasn't able to get out for my bike ride in the later part of last week. since early november, we've sort of consistently had the warmer days on wednesdays or thursdays, but it didn't happen this week - i had to wait until saturday. unfortunately, it was connected to a weird weather pattern that had the temperature peak in the morning and crash hard around noon. that was what the forecast said: it would get warmer overnight, peak around 15 degrees in the morning (i saw one reading of 17, although the official high at the airport was 15.5) and then crash hard early in the afternoon, bottoming out to below zero by midnight, and giving way to 100 km/h wind gusts. i read this and understood it and largely wrote the bike ride off this week as a result of it. but i wanted to wait to see...
when the morning came, i initially thought that the rain that came in with the system ruled the bike ride out entirely, so i started off with a walk to the closest store and picked up a few little things that i get at that store - coffee, margarine, garlic. i then went and got some hemp seeds across the street and headed back home, expecting to take a walk up to the second closest store to get some kale and a few other things. while the ground was damp from the rain, it was warm and dry enough on the way out that i could avoid the rain jacket, although i came back immediately for a second sweater. on the way back, though, the sun started to shine in a way that made it feel like spring; the sun was noticeably warming the air, the ground was evaporating moisture and creating humidity in the air and you could almost see it drying in front of you. so, it seemed like the sun was going to dry the ground out for me, and i'd be able to get on the bike, after all.
again: i saw the forecast, but i was sort of skeptical about it. 100 km wind gusts? that's going to happen like twice, right? and, it's not actually going to drop 20 degrees in a few hours, right? it'll be a slower ramp down, and we'll get a warmer afternoon than forecast. i decided the best thing to do was get the groceries done first, and then see if i could push it and go for a ride after. but, when i actually got on the bike and actually started going, i realized how nice the morning really was, and didn't want to waste it in a grocery store. i got to the store i wanted to go to and kept going, went to the next store and kept going, made it to the lifelabs (where the electronic billboard said 17 degrees) and kept going...
now that i've done this strip quite a few times, the size of the city has really changed, for me. when i first moved here, "tecumseh mall" was the edge of town, and there's some logic to that as there's a strip on tecumseh road between that batch of businesses and the next town out, called tecumseh, that feels less urbanized because it's made up mostly of car dealerships, which don't have the urban presence of a mall or a housing complex. it doesn't help that the sidewalk turns into gravel. so, it really does feel like you're heading out of town. nowadays, i realize that this relatively dense collection of malls between the railroad tracks past jefferson and the bridge over little river is actually the exit point of the center of the city. so, the fact that the last mall on the way out is called easttown is sort of a misnomer. i'm sure this phenomenon is relatively widespread; in ottawa, we have westboro, the historical west of bytown, that is nowadays pretty much the middle of the city, and the west of ottawa isn't even kanata anymore, it's stittsville or even carleton place. but, just past easttown is where i stopped on this day, as i noticed something i didn't expect: rain.
we only had a few minutes of what was really a sunshower, but i took it as my cue that the weather was about to turn. so, i stopped at a really, really far store to get some kale and then could barely even walk through the wind when i got out. i needed a few things at the dollar store, and a usb key at the walmart, and was hoping it would pass by the time i got out, but no - if anything, it was worse when i got out than it was when i went in.
this wind was coming directly at me at a constant, sustained level. it was so sustained, so constant, that it felt like a wind tunnel, rather than the thermodynamic consequences of very hot and very cold mixing this high up in the northern hemisphere, this close to the winter solstice. heat moves from hot to cold, leaving the wind behind as proof of the energy transfer. i was expecting some gusts, but nothing like this, nothing sustained, nothing this intense. not only could i not bike through this with some things in my bag, i could barely walk through it. i was literally nearly knocked over on multiple occasions. if it wasn't for the fact that the wind was coming at me head on at 0 degrees (if there was any angle at all), it might have succeeded in knocking me over. but these vectors cancelled, as it was. my forward momentum was just enough to keep me on my feet.
i had no choice but to walk home, a distance of roughly 11 km.
in the end, if the purpose of biking out of town was to get some cardio, i can't say that walking into the wind over that distance instead, with a weight on my back, was as much of a waste of time as it felt while i was doing it. given that i can barely get my heart rate up biking in the city nowadays anyways, partly due to the large amount of lights, it may have actually been better cardio. i don't know what the sustained velocity was - 50 km/h? 70 km/h? - but it was enough that you needed to arch your back a little to walk in it, and it was enough that it stung your face if you had the nerve to keep your head up. i saw people lose their hats, i saw traffic lights about to fall off, i saw all manners of signs knocked over, i saw cars smashed by falling debris, i saw many branches down, i saw cops directing traffic at lights that were out....
when i walked back past the electronic billboard that said 17 degrees on the way out, it said 9 degrees. so, that's indeed about a ten degree fall in roughly two hours. and, i wouldn't be surprised if it was near freezing by the time i got home.
the length of tecumseh that i was on for this walk is pretty much entirely straight, but i was at least able to get on my bike a little when i got past the home hardware and the road made a perpendicular turn, which really proved to me that the problem was the direction and sustained nature of the wind. so, i decided that i'd actually punish myself further by going back out and finishing my grocery run, after i dropped off the things in my bag.
so, i locked my bike in the front when i got home, walked to my front door, put my key in the lock and...
*snap*
shit. locked out. landlord's out of town. what next?
i would have been justified in smashing a window, but that's obviously not ideal, and then i'd have to live with a draft from a broken window. through some combination of sheer luck and careful skill that i didn't know i had, i was able to line the part of the key in the lock up with the part of the key on my chain (and the key broke along the groove in the key itself - one would require both halves to lock or unlock) and twist enough to open the door. crisis averted. the warmth was welcome...
i contacted my landlord when i got in, and he won't be home for a few days. so, i'm locked in. the only thing i required immediately was the kale - i'll be ok.
what a day, right?
i got into the shower and tried to get a big meal in, but dozed off repeatedly. i think i woke up about noon and think i'm stable.
so, that was why i lost saturday and appear to have lost most of sunday.
i need to do this legal stuff, first.
17:07
yeah, it's hard to get your head around it, but there's masks everywhere here, and i suppose probably in most places, too.
how difficult is it to throw it in the garbage, you fucking animals?
17:33
i've seen these around for years, and, as a bicyclist, these things completely defeat the point, for me.
i bicycle to get exercise. so, of what good is an electronic bicycle to me? conversely, if i wanted to waste energy on transit, why wouldn't i get a car?
so, what market might an electronic bicycle have when the bicycle market is people trying to get exercise and anybody that wants to transit lazily is going to rather sit in a car that ride on a bike?
frankly, i'd rather walk than get on one of these things, if it came down to it.
17:41
what is this "legal stuff" i'm talking about?
i got a "decision" in the grocery store case a few weeks ago, and it's more or less what i expected - the racist tribunal is essentially deciding that i can't file a case against a muslim. they are claiming that i did not "prove my case". but, all i did was file an application. accusation is not proof, so of course i didn't prove my case - i wasn't given an opportunity to do so. i wasn't able to provide evidence, i wasn't able to cross-examine witnesses, etc. so, how could i have proven my case?
what the tribunal is saying is that they don't want to hear the case. so, i'm left with the need to escalate it to divisional court via certiorari, and i have 90 days to do it.
but, i've been thinking about it and i'm going to file an appeal to the board laying out the actual reality - that the tribunal doesn't want to hear the case - before i escalate to divisional court. in some ways, this is a pointless formality, and probably amounts to a waste of time. i fully expect to have to ask the divisional court to pull the case, as the tribunal is clearly too incompetent to manage it. but, i should follow procedure, regardless - i should be absolutely transparent that if the tribunal doesn't want to hear the case then i'll ask the divisional court to force them to hear the case.
there are some errors in fact and law for me to draw attention to as well, but it's really about the question as to whether the issue was given any sort of due process. the tribunal has the right to hear the case in writing, but it would be required to consult evidence and hear testimony in writing, and it has not done so.
the basic point is that you can't tell me i haven't proven my case if you haven't given me the opportunity to make my argument - you're really just telling me that you don't want to hear the case, and in the process dispensing with due process. if they wanted to dismiss the case, they could have done that. as it is, i'm going to treat it like they did, and ask the higher court to hear it, instead. but, i'm going to give them a chance to correct their position, first.
you can't chase people down the street without cause and get away with it - they need to be held accountable for that.
18:24
ok, that's done - even if i'm just putting it off.
i want to finish the filing first. i left off the other day reuploading tracks and double checking to make sure they sound right, and i was actually a little bit disappointed. i'll be doing that for the next few days, and i hope i get it mostly done.
i'll have to put off the reading slightly, as i really want to get back to physical recording.
23:02
i got a very stupid response to my kijiji add and i want to clarify a few points.
1) i don't play violin. there's a number of string parts in my various recordings. it states very clearly in the liner notes that those parts are played by a computer.
2) i have had access to various live drum kits for parts of my life. my father sometimes had a kit, sarah had a kit available to her from time to time (although i only ever had partial access to it.... i think her father technically owned it....) and my old friend greg had a kit in his basement, which gets sampled in a handful of tracks. however, i am not and never have been a drummer, and most of the drums in my recordings are constructed using various electronic tactics. i generally take a kitchen sink approach to drums - i'll use live parts, samples, machines, sequences, whatever i can get my hands on. the very minimal, bottom of the line kit i have in my possession was purchased in 2007 with microsoft severance money (it's worth maybe $300) and has appeared on a handful of tracks, but it's purpose is primarily for recording. you couldn't do much with it besides basic kick-snare punk or new wave, and i wouldn't see any use in getting a live drummer to perform something in that style. i need an exceedingly talented, intricate jazz drummer to do the kinds of parts i'm thinking of, which is a part of the reason i've held off on recording some of them - the drums i need are simply too complicated to be able to do on a five piece electronic kit.
that said, these are some examples of pieces i've recorded with the electronic kit:
1) this was done in my old apartment in ottawa:
2) this was done in the previous basement in windsor:
everything else - i think without exception - has percussion done in a different manner. most of it is done with drum machines.
while my use of the electronic kit has been relatively minimal, it is a necessary part of the studio. remember: i'm a recording artist, i'm not a performing artist. the performing part is a necessary evil, and something i'd actually rather mostly avoid. but, you kind of have to at least try to play things live, if you can. even if i think it's mostly going through the motions and sort of pointless...
so, i need to have the kit, even if i only use it every couple of years. and, no, the costs of it are not important, and i don't have an interest in making money from it, just because i don't use it every day. there's gear in some studios that hasn't been touched in 20 years. i can't say that.
i can continue to try to explain that i'm a recording artist, and a composer, and therefore need access to a fully built studio, but i need people to try to make some attempt to understand it. if you continue to try to judge me via the perceptions of a performing artist, you're going to continue to get confused.
i mean, i keep telling you that i'm a composer and i don't want to be a rock star, and you keep criticizing me for not being a rock star. that's right, you fucking dipshits - i'm not a rock star. i'm a classical guitarist and a written composer. i don't even like rock music...
23:17
this, for example, is an ry30 drum machine:
i can't play like that.
i'm a guitarist. sorry.
23:23
and, no i don't see anything wrong with telling you that much of the orchestral parts are written in a scorewriter and sequenced by a soundcard.
it's in the liner notes.
i'm not hiding anything, and i'm not ashamed of it - yes, i'm an electronic music composer. that's what i do: i write and record guitar-driven techno music.
it's baffling to me that people don't want to listen...
23:31
i'm supposed to be working on period 3.1.
this piece will have some live drum kits, and i'll need to do it on the electric kit:
...just as soon as i get done filing and can get cubase to run without freezing.
23:40
monday, december 13, 2021
it doesn't seem like omicron is the breaking point. but, we should expect that natural immunity is going to outlast these rna-vaccines.
see, for decades and decades, natural and vaccine-produced immunity were really the same thing because vaccines were just dead viruses. it didn't really matter which one you got.
but, the vaccines they're handing out nowadays are not whole virus, they only have little bits of the virus. that makes it easier for mutations to evade existing antibodies.
there was a time when silly people thought we could eliminate this virus, but that's long past. further, we don't want to become reliant on vaccines to protect us against weak viruses like this that we ought to be able to defeat with little effort. so, we're going to have to get a grip on this, eventually: natural immunity is actually superior to vaccination. the public health goal for most people should really be natural exposure.
i would get a whole virus or even an active culture vaccine for this, but i think i'm better off with natural immunity than an rna vaccine, and i just frankly don't know if i have it yet or not.
as we turn the corner into increasingly different variants, we're going to have to start to accept natural immunity not just as sufficient but as preferable and as normal.
0:18
these demos, recorded when i was 15-16, feature live acoustic drums that i played on my dad's kit in the old basement studio:
these recordings have live drums that i played on a different kit my dad bought a few years later:
these tracks feature greg playing the drums, but note that they were spliced and looped and also feature drum machines:
these tracks feature drums that i played on sarah's drum kit:
and, these are the three (not two. three.) tracks with the electronic drums:
everything else is programmed and/or sampled and looped and/or spliced.
0:36
i actually program a lot of my drums in a scorewriter, not in a machine.
this is one of the more complicated examples of drums written in a scorewriter:
0:38
these recordings use the ry30 primarily, but may also use hammerhead (a 909 emulator) and just random loops of random noises and bloops and blips:
these recordings utilize random blips and bloops for drums exclusively or almost exclusively:
these recordings utilize loops produced in various standalone software drum machines (all 808 or 909 like):
these tracks use drum parts that were composed in scorewriters, primarily:
these recordings do not have drums at all:
2:30
tuesday, december 14, 2021
so, this is inri002, updated (again) to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way:
i've tested this one, and in fact re-uploaded it repeatedly, and the results are sort of confusing. it sounded wrong, until i downloaded it, and then it sounded correct. but, then it sounded wrong, again. and then it sounded right again after i started typing up this complaint, and then wrong again when i started focusing on filing. it's almost as though they were waiting for me to actually download it for the a/b, and then reverted once i called them on their bluff, and then reverted again once they thought i'd stopped watching, then back again, and then back again. and, that means what, exactly? that they're playing stupid games?
fuck.
i'm not disturbing this by measuring it - it shouldn't change under observation. that's not quantum theory, it's just silly woo.
so, it keeps modulating between a higher volume, higher gain version that boosts the mids (the correct version) and a more compressed sounding, incorrect version that wants to boost the bottom, instead. i seem to be able to get the correct version by refreshing, sometimes, but it seems to default to the incorrect version, over and over.
but these are imprecise human observations. the math is that it nulls.
what else can i say?
i've hypothesized before that i'm actually hearing an echo from a background listener that is cutting in and out on the line. the sum of it is that the bass gets boosted, but it could be the effect of a reverb feedback loop - and that's what you'd expect. so, for example, try putting a guitar through a delay effect and then feeding it back through an amp - it builds up very fast on the low end. so, i'm complaining that the bass is too loud and i can't hear the highs on the guitars, but maybe i'm actually hearing the feedback from the cops.
i dunno. i know it comes and goes, and i know i don't get it.
but, these files null, so what else can i say? it is possible to hear them correctly. i've made my displeasure clear, on the case that they're being altered. if i'm dealing with a malicious actor that insists on altering the files despite repeated instructions not to, what can i do besides point it out and demand otherwise? and, if i'm dealing with the technical consequences of internet streaming, what can i do?
i'm necessarily streaming this on the chromebook, so i can't disconnect. that's the point.
*sigh*
it nulls.
i wish i could upload some kind of signature file somewhere and get people to download it.
so, i've been spending the last several days trying to win a stupid argument about artistic freedom by overpowering whatever's going on via sheer will power, and i really don't know how long it'll hold for. but, it sounds ok right now.
there's four possibilities:
1) somebody is messing with the bass response at the server level, and my control over it is minimal. it comes back and forth with no real pattern.
2) i'm hearing interference from the cops.
3) it's compression introduced by the server, and i'm unusually sensitive to it, given that it's my own mixes.
4) subtle differences in the volume on playback are messing with my head.
re: (4), i'm used to listening to this with the volume cranked - while mastering, on my mp3 player, on my home system, etc. but, it actually sounds much better from bandcamp when it's run at a slightly lower level. it could be that some kind of normalization algorithm at the site (they may insist on boosting the volume before they convert to low quality mp3s for streaming) is essentially distorting the output at high volume, and i just need to turn it down to compensate (and maybe run it through an external amplifier if i need more volume). the quality of the dac in this chromebook is no doubt not helping much, although it does sound fine at a lower level.
as it is, i've found a sort of sweet spot and i hope to exploit it. if it keeps breaking in the same way, though...
5:11
see, it went back to the incorrect bassy version after i posted that.
i've unpublished it in protest.
5:23
...and, it went back to normal as soon as i unpublished it.
ugh.
5:24
yeah, right now it's consistent - it sounds correctly when i unpublish it, and sound incorrectly when i republish it.
so, we'll keep it unpublished for now, and move on.
5:26
maybe, i psyched the fucker at the mixing desk out, because i just republished it, and it sounds correct in the sweet spot, now.
5:30
nope.
it reverted to the incorrect, corrupted, high-bass version. again.
i'll have to keep it unpublished for a while still, it seems.
i hope i don't have to unpublish other albums, as well.
5:37
inflation and employment are not related to each other. the philips curve was discarded 45 years ago. so...what?
the direction the government is setting is clear: it wants inflation. the real reason it wants inflation is that it benefits investors, but it can't come out and say that. so, it trots out an archaic theory that has been debunked for decades and uses it to claim it's prioritizing job creation.
i would like to see the media call this out as the utterly cynical bullshit that it is, but guess what? the media is run by the investor class. yeah.
but, here's the thing: the philips curve is such a joke nowadays, and so widely understood as one, that this kind of demagoguery is too transparent to get by any sort of educated voter. a simple half semester course in economics is all you need to debunk this as the cynical bullshit that it is.
so, when people see interest rates start going up, and they're told it's for jobs, i'd expect somewhat of a vicious backlash.
this is not surprising, though - the liberals have been broadcasting for years that they want a return to moderate inflation, and they want rates to rise along with it.
never forget that this is the bankers' party and that, when it comes to substantive policy, the bank always comes first.
8:08
ok, i don't want to jinx it, but i did just get through the inri000 section of inri002 without it defaulting to the bass boost, while published.
i can only hope it stays stable...
10:33
i mean, if i am dealing with a fucker at the mixing desk - however ridiculous that idea is - i should have made my disdain beyond clear, by now. any misguided attempts to help should have been realized as absurd quite some time ago.
10:35
listen - i'm struggling to make sense of my experiences.
i'm grasping at absurdities. but, i seem to be being presented with them, fairly consistently.
10:36
it always makes me laugh when people try to associate being a rock star with heterosexual male prowess.
you realize that 80% of the actually interesting rock singers since 1965 have been exclusively or primarily gay, right?
the other 20% were mostly skinny, nerdy losers that probably didn't have much difficulty finding sex because they were rich, but are hardly sex symbols.
the sexually attractive heterosexual male rock star is actually somewhat of a unicorn, in truth.
10:45
alright.
i've listened to inri002 streaming from the server, and i can hear that it is good. for now. whatever was fucking with the mix has lifted.
i can't sit here and police the files 24/7, but if it was the conscious result of some external actor, they have withdrawn, for now. i can only hope it was via the persuasiveness of my oratorical prowess. as i yell at the microphone in the walls...
please leave these files alone.
and, please don't mess with anything else, either.
moving on...
12:28
i reuploaded inri003 the other day, just to make sure the files weren't corrupted.
these are the unedited mixes from 1997. well, almost unedited - i had to convert them all to stereo. i still have the mono mp3s from 1997.
they're mono because the samples i used were mono. in fact, they're like 56 kbps, because the samples were like 56 kbps.
so, this should sound kind of flat and dead, and it does. with the the first three recordings (the two demos and the inricycled), the sound should be trebly and sparkly and bright, partly intentionally and partly due to the fact that i was a 15-16 year old kid that was learning how to use the gear. it's important that the packages maintain that naivete, so we can't have fancy bass transforms running over it. it broadly doesn't sound that bad. this recording, inri003, is my first experiment with digital anything, and has to maintain the telephone speaker or am radio quality, even though i've long upsampled it.
it sounds ok to me. but, if you notice a dramatic increase in sound quality, please contact me. that would not be right - this is a document of a collection of primitive experiments, was isolated and released that way for that reason and needs to maintain a glitchy, low sound quality aesthetic.
the remasters for inri015 and inri021, where most of these end up, are a little thicker sounding.
12:50
no, really.
12:54
i also re-uploaded inri004 to be sure, and i think it sounds ok.
again: i actually don't want the exaggerated boom, here. if you want to crank the bass on your system, it's there - go for it. but, for me, this is melodic hardcore first, and experimental hip-hop second. the interesting part of the track is the harmonic interplay between the guitars and the white noise. so, you want to just crank it to get that fuzzy guitar blaring at you. and, you'll notice that the bass actually comes up with the volume, when you do.
13:35
where am i on the filing?
i have done an extra thorough run through the first 10 releases, inri000-inri009, which is also the first blu-ray disc. that leaves inri010-inri074, and the tracks i'm currently working on.
i was hoping that i could sync as i was working, but it hasn't worked out. on second thought, inri004 does not sound right and i've left it unpublished. given that it took a few tries before i could set inri002 right, and something seemed to click, i decided to re-upload inri000, inri001 & inri003. i have also reuploaded inri004 yet again and am hoping it stays in place, this time.
inri004 is a lot of things - it's industrial hip-hop, it's melodic hardcare, it's shoegaze, it's blues and it's even a bit of country. it's an experimental electronic noise piece and a grunge/alternative/punk rock song at the same time. so, it's all over the place. but, if there's somebody messing with it, they're misreading it - it's not supposed to be a dancehall thumper, and it's not supposed to sound like somebody put it through a meat grinder. it's really pretty wysiwyg - it's a punk song with a drum machine. and it has sparkly, pretty guitars - not angry, mean ones.
i don't know why anybody would imagine they could actualize my art better than i could, but the mentality underlying it is turning it into a factory process. it is effectively co-opting my art, and destroying it by turning it into a commodity. in place of unique, individual expression is substituted a set of algorithms designed to maximize market appeal. and, i neither have any interest in it nor any time for it.
i don't want to play stupid games regarding my expression.
i expect that the files i upload will not be further altered.
and, that is all.
19:10
the sad thing about this is that the only reason they're doing it is that they think it's populist.
it's utterly pointless.
20:09
i think it's fairly clear that we should expect new covid variants every 9-15 months.
so, are we going to go into lockdown every year?
i think it's time to stop improvising, now, and realize that this is permanent. it means that people are going to have to adjust.
it also means our healthcare system is going to have to adjust and stop expecting to be able to shut down society every few months because it can't keep up.
20:19
clearly, we're going to need more permanent icus.
so, let's get to building the capacity, so that the system isn't constantly strained. 'cause i'll say it if nobody else will - this isn't unprecedented anymore. we're no longer in a random emergency, we're now dealing with a structural change that the hospitals need to adjust to. so, if the hospitals can't keep up, i have the right to get annoyed and ask "why not?".
20:28
we can't just keep shutting everything down to save the hospitals.
the hospitals need to adjust to the new reality.
20:30
wednesday, december 15, 2021
i'm confusing people, i get it.
so, how about this, for clarification.
what i'm really suggesting is that lockdowns ought to be voluntary. and, i'm an anarchist - that's pretty consistent with my broad governing philosophy. if you want to stay in, then stay in. but, don't tell other people how to manage their own risk. there's a broad level of consistency in being pro-choice underlying a wide variety of voluntary behaviours, and a lot of weird contradictions in how the bourgeois fake left is behaving, at the moment. i keep calling them right-wing extremists and crypto-fascists and that isn't hyperbolic - those words are chosen carefully as their meaning is most relevant to describe the governing philosophy that we're up against. that's not an insult, it's a factual description.
the other perspective is the idea that you need an authoritarian government to step in and force people to act in a way that benefits a specific class of vulnerable people, which isn't even authoritarian socialism, it's a more traditional type of conservatism. even the most authoritarian forms of socialism would fundamentally take a "from each, to each" style mentality. from each according to their immunity, to each according to their vulnerability. it means the society should protect the weak, not tell everybody else what to do; it means the immune should be doing the work, while the vulnerable are swept away and taken care of. boris johnson's approach is the actually socialist perspective, here.
so, it would be weird for me to come out and demand an authoritarian response, and continue to call myself a leftist or socialist or anarchist. and, really, where people are aligning on this is a sort of a tip-off as to where they actually stand on the spectrum, wherever they claim they do. if you think the government should be ordering you around on this, you're not much of a socialist - and you're certainly not much of an anarchist socialist.
4:29
i have difficulty understanding how somebody that is pro-choice on abortion can also support vaccine mandates. to me, that's an incoherent, illogical position that's rooted in an ideological inconsistency.
conversely, i don't understand how an anti-vaxxer can stand up with an anti-abortion sign. that is an equally contradictory position.
to me, it is natural that people should be pro or anti choice in a broad sense, but the spectrum is setting itself up as two contradictions set off against each other and asking people to choose one contradiction over the other.
i suppose it may indicate that people aren't really aligning on these issues in a clear or consistent or logical manner rooted in broad or underlying principles; if i'm a libertarian one way, i should be the other way, and vice versa. right? but, perhaps, most people that align as pro-choice on the abortion side are really doing so out of female-driven identity politics, rather than the insistence on bodily autonomy - in their minds, it's a special right for women, who deserve special privileges [the princess paradox] rather than being a specific example of individual bodily autonomy and the inalienable right to self-ownership. and, on the other side, vaccine mandates may be being resisted because they're seen as unnatural and undoing god's will - like abortions or homosexuality.
but, i need to put that aside. i'm not getting in between a debate between religious fanatics and what is the far right of the feminist movement. i am going to assert individual autonomy, i am going to push for self-ownership and i'm going to demand that the individual be given the right to manage their own risk, and insist that isolation consequently be done strictly voluntarily.
4:39
1800 cases in ontario, today.
where's your vaccine passports now?
10:26
10:29
ok.
where was i?
1) double checking today, inri002 sounds good, published. these are the added tags for inri002, fwiw: alternative, blues, grunge, hardcore, industrial, jazz, no wave, noise, punk, shoegaze.
2) double checking today, inri003 sounds good, published. these are the added tags for inri003, fwiw: aleatoric, collage, cut-up technique, electronic, glitch, industrial, minimalist, musique concrete, noise, plunderphonics.
3) i've re-uploaded inri004 a few times, and it doesn't want to hold. right now, it sounds good, published. but, i haven't stepped away and come back and found it undisturbed, yet. that's a necessity before i step away from it, entirely. these are the added tags for inri004, fwiw: alternative, blues, goth, grunge, hip hop, industrial, melodic hardcore, noise, punk, shoegaze.
i actually spent some time listening to is survived by yesterday and yelling at the wall - these aren't metal guitars, they're hardcore guitars. highs, not lows, get it. stop fucking with it. fuck.
the actual influences on the guitar part back in 1998 were more along the lines of smash and siamese dream. but, the key, central part of the song is that twangy flanged guitar part that sounds like a pedal steel (but is just an electric run through a digital effects pedal). even the drums are mixed to crank the treble, not the bass. you should hear a subtle sweep on the noise sample, which is acing like a snare. i keep reuploading it to bring back the definition, but it just keeps defaulting to this crappy scooped mess.
:(.
i'm jumping to inri005, but i'm not confident that these tracks are stable, quite yet.
i found some extra material to file, so i had to go back. i'm at inri010.
i wanted to make more music videos when i was out and about, and i think i should refocus on that:
17:06
scooped guitars suck.
17:11
i know i look like a hardcore kid in that fuck the dead video. i always did.
i really had no idea what emo even was. really.
but, i listened to a lot of socal punk, and a lot of very leftist, politically oriented industrial music, which was just an outgrowth of punk. and i hope it's pretty obvious, actually.
18:19
thursday, december 16, 2021
i'd rather advise the world against coming to canada right now than advise canadians against travelling the world.
but, there has never been any legitimate, convincing scientific document that has ever argued that viruses can be restricted via restricting travel. that would appear to be an original idea that is properly attributed to donald trump.
i don't really care, right now. when can i get a whole virus or live attenuated vaccine instead of one of these rna-vaccine wastes of time?
5:45
given that the newer variants are practically airborne - apparently driven by an evolutionary pressure brought on by not-quite-good-enough social distancing - it's not clear to me what the purpose of reducing capacity at large events is.
there is going to be substantive spread at any event with more than a few dozen people (which, ironically, is the average size of the show in the small bars that i would actually go to, which are the ones being targeted the worst). mask use doesn't matter. vaccines don't matter (for reducing spread). distancing doesn't matter.
so, we need to think less continuously and more discretely - it's really a binary choice. events should be allowed to go forward (which will lead to high case counts, which we'll have to get used to), or cancelled altogether, if we really want to continue focusing on conserving health care resources at the expense of everything else.
these in between measures in the form of compromises and measured responses may seem reasonable, via intution and common sense. but, the science doesn't uphold them - the science says that that's completely wrong, that restricting capacity is utterly pointless in any sense other than to restrict the number of people attending a mass exposure event (which at best might buy time).
i vote for letting people define their own risk factors - if they think they can go out and get sick and bat it off, let them do it. but, if people are less confident in their immune system, or just a little paranoid, let them stay in, too. venues, as well, may want to make decisions regarding the average age of their patrons. night clubs may see less use for restrictions than opera houses, due to the age of their respective audiences. it should be up to them to make those decisions.
so, i'm going to call on the government of ontario to reverse all capacity restrictions, including those on strip clubs and nightclubs.
7:29
the news is talking about the r-value of omicron. is that sensationalist? grounded? bullshit? incomplete?
you should realize that the r-value is an estimate, and that it's population rather than virus specific. in theory, you can experimentally determine it, but you'll never get very close in practice, and it's constantly modulating, so it's a moving target and consequently of far less value than is being suggested.
you can say something like "the r-value of this variant is larger than others" and not fall into utterly meaningless ambiguity. but, you're going to hear statements like "at π/ln2, the r-value of this variant is 378.3% higher than the r-value of the previous. if that growth rate holds, we'll have 8,000 cases per hour by st patrick's day.", and these kinds of statements are really void of meaning.
you will always be presented with a quantitative r-value, and it will always be constructed with entirely insufficient data. you should always mentally correct it to a qualitative observation.
so, yes, the new variant is more contagious than the last one. don't get stupid about it; remember that the news is intended to entertain us.
8:19
i don't want to teach. i think it's a waste of time.
but, a course on mathematical literacy for adults, to help people understand the news and stop them from putting pressure on governments to do stupid things, has an obvious role in contemporary society.
it's got me thinking, anyways.
8:43
something like "adult numeracy for liberal arts majors" should be a necessary half or probably actually full credit course in most arts degrees.
8:56
friday, december 17, 2021
so, i got out today to take advantage of what looks to be the last warmish snap of the year (although it's hardly about to get cold...and we might get a pleasant surprise by year's end....), got some blood work done, got another bike ride in, got groceries for the next two weeksish and got pummeled by the wind on the way back, again...
it wasn't as bad, but it was pretty bad.
the official reason i got the groceries done today was that it's going to be a little colder for the next few weeks, and this is usually about the time of year when we start to push our luck, regarding warm days. it was the 16th today - that's five days before the solstice, which is the shortest day of the year (ok, not exactly, but symbolically at least) and the actual literal start of winter. the high in windsor today was about 15 degrees above normal. it's time for some normal weather now, even if it's only two-three weeks.
so, i intend to be in for the next 10-15 days, strictly - and i will intend to be in for 10-15 days at a time until...i'm expecting an early spring. i should get that bike ride in again before the end of february, i think.
but, there is of course a new covid variant making the rounds, and i should try to avoid spreading it, too.
i went to many stores today looking for a handful of items that have just disappeared - extra large eggs, frank's red hot (large bottle), vector cereal, pc caesar dressing. there seems to have been a grocery run here on very specific items of this sort, i suppose in expectation of staying in for a while. it's very specific, though. there's tons of fresh fruit and vegetables, tons of toilet paper, tons of canned food, etc, but, cereal, specifically, just got nailed, for some reason. and the condiments aisle had several empty products in store after store.
i found some eggs and some hot sauce. i have enough vector and caesar to get me through to the next run. but, this is weirdly specific, and i can only hope the stores adjust.
the flip side is that the items will probably end up on sale next month or the month after, as sales crash and the stores need to move them. that's what happened with toilet paper.
and, let's be real - there was no run on toilet paper because we've mostly all still got a supply, right? i've taken to keeping four 12s on hand at a time, which is a doubling of the previous two. i've got four extra toothpastes, two extra dish soap's, four extra shampoo & conditioner's, etc. so, i'm set for the winter, and then some, in the worst case.
for now, i need to eat, and then to sleep.
we're going to spend friday doing alter-reality this week, in an attempt to seriously catch up.
1:06
see, i think the smart kids always realized this: the virus will became endemic. we can do it the easy way, and get it over with.....or we can do it the hard way: take away everybody's rights, collapse society as we understand it and ultimately end up with the same result.
there is a lesson here, but it's perhaps not what you want to learn.
keep your elderly loved ones in a safe space, this winter.
6:07
it's the beginning of summer in south africa, and the beginning of winter in london. you would expect cases to have peaked there at the end of spring - and would expect cases to pick up in london around saturnalia. it's a very bad comparison to make. the question is whether the milder effects of omicron will offset the increased transmissibility, in the context of an expected increase in cases due to the onset of winter, and we'll find out soon enough. my own expectation is that the milder outcomes won't make much of a difference on the mortality rate, as those that end up dying are dying less of covid and more due to broader, underlying conditions, to begin with. it's like when your cause of death after fighting hiv for 20 years is influenza - did you die of the flu or of aids? most (not all) of these deaths that we attribute to covid are really best attributed to the underlying conditions, so the weaker omicron won't really make that much of a difference. that said, he is making a valid general point about the projection of exponential curves too far into the future, but he's misapplying it, in context - in the northern hemisphere, it actually is reasonable to project these curves well into january at least, if not into february. south africans should enjoy the warmer weather, and hope the situation isn't too volatile in their fall.
7:51
a little while back, i had to switch soy milk brands because the brand i was using decreased the amount of vitamin d in the milk. this is a result of a bill passed recently by the liberal government to let manufacturers make their food less healthy. for profit. it benefits shareholders...
i just looked at the soy i've been buying since, and i see that the amount of vitamin d in it also decreased - or at least it did in the vanilla version i was using for my salad dressing. i'm not sure exactly when that happened, but it is true for all cartons in my recycle bin.
as soy milk is one of my primary sources of vitamin d, and all of my calculations were done with the expectation of using it as a primary source, it makes sense that my d would come down, if they take it out of the soy milk. this is a contemptible decision, both on behalf of the company and on behalf of the government allowing them to do it.
there are health benefit of soy, so i'll have to look for another brand, and keep a closer eye on it. but, i'm probably going to have to get used to taking supplements, because there appears to be a decision made by various conglomerates to stop fortifying vegetarian foods, due to that decrease in government regulation.
so, i would call on the government to bring back those regulations, forcing vegetarian manufacturers to fortify their items with nutrients like vitamins d and b12.
assholes...
8:22
no, i'm not going to start eating meat, it's disgusting and unhealthy and expensive and cruel.
8:25
the trudeau government advocates for free market fundamentalism. that's not well understood, but it's true.
you'd have to ask them to be sure, but i'm certain that they'd consider fortification regulations to be an unjustified interference in the market.
8:28
so, i was buying three kinds of soy milk - chocolate for coffee, full fat vanilla for salad dressing [which is inedible garbage, broadly speaking] and low fat soy for breakfast. the items were all fortified identically. recently, the full fat vanilla has reduced the amount of fortification, so i will no longer be purchasing that item, as it is no longer healthy. instead, i'll sub the low fat version, to get the vitamins back.
let's check this now.
- fruit bowl: just the soy milk. this soy milk is still fortified, at least for now.
- cereal bowl: this is vector, all bran, flax, raw wheat bran, paprika & soy milk (the fortified version). they changed the vector a while back, but it's been stable for a while. the all bran is stable for now.
- yogurt bowl: yogurt, ice cream. they're both stable.
- salad bowl: cheese is stable. fortified margarine is stable. hot sauce is actually a source of sodium, which i don't get very much of in my diet. the soy will be replaced, as mentioned.
- quinoa bowl: caesar dressing is not calculated, yet. cheese is stable.
- yogurt bowl: yogurt is stable. cheees is stable. hot sauce is stable.
- eggs meal: bread is stable. margarine is stable.
i hope the yeast is also stable, but i kind of don't know. it's exceedingly important for my vitamin intake. so long as the b12 remains stable, the yeast should be the major source of it - although b12 is one of the things that reduced in the updated soy formulation. iron is another. so is calcium. it's just an inferior product, inferior enough that i'm done with it.
i can only hope that they don't ruin the low fat version, too.
the apple juice i buy has also changed recently, from fresh to concentrate. so, i'll need to find a new source of fresh juice. i am not interested in drinking fruit from concentrate - gross.
9:09
i used to buy the so good, and i was a big fan of it, but it got bought out and destroyed by this parasitic company called earth's own.
so, i switched to natura, which is the company that was producing the superior product (at a higher price) and has recently degraded it, to their tremendous discredit.
9:11
they seem to have doubled the amount of sugar, too.
disgusting.
i'm done with that.
i wish they would have put a disclaimer or something on it, because i wouldn't have touched the stuff at all, if i knew they had made those deplorable changes.
9:22
consumer beware: soy milk used to be good for you.
it's increasingly the case that it's not any more, and should probably be avoided by most people.
there is no acceptable replacement; i'm probably going to have to take supplements, including soy supplements.
9:23
so, is the change in formulation in the soy milk behind the alarming rise in triglycerides?
it very well might be.
i normally wouldn't touch such an unhealthy, piece of shit product like that with a ten foot pole, let alone eat it every day.
i can't undo it, i can just adjust and be more careful.
9:25
if the government insists on refusing to regulate the food industry to ensure they don't mass produce poison, it's going to be left to the consumer to essentially boycott anything remotely processed.
you basically can't buy healthy soy products anywhere at all anymore in this country - i know. i've looked.
9:28
so, i got some more results and they're mostly relieving.
i'll talk a little under the chart.
| 2021 | 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | j | f | m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | |
| creatinine | 78/80 | - | - | - | - | 87 | 84 | 83 / 81 | 80 | 90/64 | ||||||||||||
| egfr | 107/106 | - | - | - | - | 96 | 100 | 101 / 104 | 106 | 92/116 | ||||||||||||
| alp | 61 | - | - | 63 | 59 | 50 | 60 | 59 /55 | 47 | 50 | ||||||||||||
| albumin | -/45.7 | - | - | - | 45.9 | 44.6 | 46.8 | 48 /46 | 46.7 | 49.8 | ||||||||||||
| cholesterol | 3.93 | - | - | - | 3.99 | 3.8 | 4.15 | 4.01/3.83 | 4.14/4.02 | 4.14/3.67 | ||||||||||||
| triglycerides | .87 | - | - | - | .95 | .89 | 1.41 | 1.05/0.94 | 1.09/1.32 | 1.86/0.73 | ||||||||||||
| hdl | 1.69 | - | - | - | 1.84 | 1.59 | 1.73 | 1.42/1.55 | 1.37/1.42 | 1.51/1.74 | ||||||||||||
| ldl | 1.85 | - | - | - | 1.72 | 1.81 | 1.78 | 2.11/1.85 | 2.28/2.00 | 1.79/1.6 | ||||||||||||
| non-hdl | 2.24 | - | - | - | 2.15 | 2.21 | 2.42 | 2.59/2.28 | 2.77/2.60 | 2.63/1.93 | ||||||||||||
| wbc | 8.7/8.4 | 9.9/9.0 | - | - | ? | 7.0 | 7.6 | 6.9/6.9 | 7.8 | 11.3/8.2 | ||||||||||||
| rbc | 3.97/4.25 | 4.11/4.38 | - | - | 4.17 | 4.12 | 4.33 | 4.47/4.2 | 4.28 | 4.55/4.19 | ||||||||||||
| hemoglobin | 132/140 | 133/142 | - | - | 139 | 136 | 141 | 138/138 | 139 | 144/131 | ||||||||||||
| hematocrit | .382/.404 | .394/.424 | - | - | .405 | .398 | .418 | .417/.402 | .405 | 0.431/0.393 | ||||||||||||
| mcv | 96.1/95.1 | 95.8/97.0 | - | - | 97 | 96.8 | 96.6 | 93/95.7 | 94.6 | 94.7/94 | ||||||||||||
| mch | 33.1/32.9 | 32.4/32.5 | - | - | 33.3 | 33.2 | 32.7 | 30.9/32.8 | 32.5 | 31.8/31.3 | ||||||||||||
| mchc | 345/346 | 338/335 | - | - | ? | 343 | 338 | 331/343 | 344 | 335/333 | ||||||||||||
| rdw | 13.3/13.5 | 13.0/13.1 | - | - | ? | 13 | 12.3 | 11.7/12.9 | 12.6 | 13.4/12.0 | ||||||||||||
| platelet | 199/187 | 171/171 | - | - | ? | 175 | 167 | 168/150 | 155 | 188/185 | ||||||||||||
| reticulocytes | - | -/42 | - | - | 53 | 56 | 46 | 35 | 33 | 33 | ||||||||||||
| vitamin d | 87 | - | - | - | 109 | 72 | 64 | 72/83 | 78 | 64/ | ||||||||||||
| estradiol | 363/388 | - | - | - | - | 563 | 443 | 432 | 777 | 343 | ||||||||||||
| estrone | - | - | - | - | - | ? | 4138 | 5203 | 7000+ | - | ||||||||||||
| testosterone | 0.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | ||||||||||||
| progesterone | 1.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.9 | ||||||||||||
| fsh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.2 | 0.1 | <0.1 | - | ||||||||||||
| lh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | - | ||||||||||||
| ferritin | 12/9 | 6/17 | 21 | - | 29 | 43 | 28 | 40 | 42 | 59 | ||||||||||||
| tibc | - | 69.5 | - | - | 65.7 | 62.9 | 64.7 | 58.9 | 58.2 | 63.2 | ||||||||||||
| iron | - | 9.6 | - | - | 22.7 | 37.3 | 19.3 | 28.3 | 37.3 | 32.5 | ||||||||||||
| iron sat | - | 0.14 | - | - | 0.35 | 0.59 | 0.3 | .48 | 0.64 | 0.51 | ||||||||||||
| transferrin | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.59 | 2.29 | 2.38 | 2.49 | ||||||||||||
| sodium | - | - | - | - | - | - | 141 | 141/139 | 140 | 141 | ||||||||||||
| potassium | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5.0 | 4.7/4.6 | 4.3 | 4.0 | ||||||||||||
| chloride | - | - | - | - | - | - | 104 | 107/105 | 104 | 101 | ||||||||||||
| phosphate | -/1.42 | - | - | - | - | 1.09 | 1.34 | 1.08 | 1.35 | 1.27 | ||||||||||||
| magnesium | -/.93 | - | - | - | - | 0.8 | 0.82 | 0.86 | 0.82 | 0.84 | ||||||||||||
| calcium | -/2.4 | - | - | - | 2.38 | 2.32 | 2.44 | 2.39 | 2.4 | 2.43 | ||||||||||||
| pth | - | - | - | 5.5 | - | 6.2 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 5.5 | 8.0 | ||||||||||||
| tsh | 0.92 | - | - | - | - | 0.94 | 1.22 | 1.67 | 1.48 | 1.07 | ||||||||||||
| calcitonin | - | - | - | <0.6 | - | - | - | - | <0.6 | - | ||||||||||||
| cortisol | - | - | - | 325 | - | 464 | 170 | 129 | 225 | 136 | ||||||||||||
| insulin | - | - | - | - | - | 50 | 33 | 68 | 92 | 312 | ||||||||||||
| b12 | 223/251 | - | 304 | - | 363 | 313 | 370 | 292 | 369 | 376 | ||||||||||||
i'm waiting on acth (for adrenal glands), vitamin d and androstenedione. aldosterone will come up next month, as you have to be in in the morning and awake early.
additionally, the dhea-s came in at 4.7. the reference range for men is <15 and for women is <6.5. so, i'd like this to be a little lower, but it's in range.
they couldn't calculate free or total testosterone; dht isn't listed, but i guess it's the same idea. i wasn't sure how that worked, but i guess that's my answer - any dht would be a subset of generic testosterone, and it's just too small to decompose. ok.
what about the rest of it?
well, my kidney function certainly recovered, huh? i'd been urinating all day, due to drinking a lot of water and drinking a ton of coffee. like, i had to stop in multiple places to relieve myself - and had just urinated a nice mellow bottle full before i got the test done. this is in contrast to the previous test, where i urinated a minimal almost brown trickle when i got the test done. if nothing else, this is explanatory - creatinine goes down when you're pissing a river, and up when you're so dehydrated you can barely squeeze it out. i should be less concerned with high creatinne than low, but what the range really suggests is that my kidneys are working extra well, actually. i think. i'll want to keep an eye on that, but i think it's ok.
my rbc is down again, and the difference is that it'd been a few days since i took a pill. so, i'm learning that my iron is high after i take a pill and goes down a lot between dosages. i'm going to stick with every third day until the next ferritin reading. there is still no evidence i'm bleeding, but i seem to run a little low on iron - and i think that's something that runs on my dad's side. we'll see what the next ferritin reading says; i could go back to every second day, instead. the wbcs are healthy, again.
this time, my cholesterol's as good as it's ever been, so i think i was right about (1) eating a little too much before and (2) being pushed into starvation mode while exercising, last time. i need to switch soy brands for the d, but i guess the sugar didn't have a long term effect. good.
i was taking the estrogen at a higher frequency, previously. so, i'm going to need to talk to the doctor about increasing the dose - to every 10 hours, to start. i also quite clearly need to get my progesterone up, i think. i may have to argue with him about that.
the cortisol is an afternoon reading, so i shouldn't be too disappointed that it didn't go back up a little. i dunno; i have to take it in the context of other kidney functions. let me wait for acth, to start.
and, what about the insulin? it's tagged as high for a random insulin, but i mentioned last time that i wanted to test my pancreas, so it wasn't random - i had just finished a mars bar. normal range roughly 30 minutes after glucose administration is 208-1597, so 360 is on the low end, which is consistent with everything else, but also pretty healthy, i think. remember: i'm concerned about a potential underactive pancreas. but, it reacted - it did what it was supposed to do. maybe it could have been a bit more enthusiastic about it, but it did it. fine.
so, i think my health is ok, post-surgery. for now. so long as i don't bicycle 3 hours in the wind on an empty stomach before i get tested, anyways.
but, i have some more hormone issues to discuss, i think.
11:12
they really are just flat out stupid.
16:16
- no dancing
- no music
- no alcohol
- you're only allowed to socialize at church
welcome to iran.
welcome to hell.
16:21
just to clarify a point: historically, i've tended to purchase and smoke a small amount of marijuana (away from the house) on and after the solstice. i have often purchased a quarter around the 20th and smoked it every day until around the 5th, saving a small amount for my birthday on the 13th. i refer to this as a end-of-the-year head cave.
i have taken a very different viewpoint on marijuana since diagnosed with near-osteoporosis. i can try to slow down the loss of bone mass, but i can't rebuild it. smoking anything at all in any sustained manner would be stupid.
that being said, i'm also not in the right mental space to do that. in past years, i've had productive recording periods. the ends of 2014, 2015 and 2016 were very productive, in terms of recording. the end of 2017 was sort of unique, as i moved. i did not head cave at the end of 2018 as i did not feel like it (i smoked no marijuana over the holidays that year at all), i found myself sick with a weird pneumonia at the end of 2019 (picked up in detroit) and avoided head caving for that reason and i bought an 1/8th last year on my birthday, after experimenting with edibles around saturnalia, and being disappointed by it.
i have been trying for months to get back on track and the length of the day changing isn't an exciting thing to me this year.
i will probably spend most of the next month reading, but i want to get done the filing, too, and take the next troubleshooting step in rebuilding the recording machine in a stable way.
the machine has been stable with the sound card, so i've re-allowed for usb. i have searched the large drives without it crashing. will it crash while searching usb drives?
if it's stable after a while, the next step will to be to turn the firewire back on. i'm going to avoid those video card drivers for a while, still.
16:48
remember: while i was archiving my scattered internet writing over 2017, and focusing on a journal-writing phase over 2018-2020, and i spent the end of 2020 building a diet, i have been trying to get back to recording since early 2021 and have been unable to because the recording computer is broken in a way that i do not understand.
i thought it was ram, but it's not.
i can't convince myself that there's a short in the board.
the machine exhibits unusual network behaviour (despite being air-gapped), and there are symptoms of a bios virus that seems like a government attack. it has frequently randomly installed netbios, using a process i don't understand. i've wondered if somebody is utilizing a hidden wifi chip, or hacking me using microwave technology.
until recently, ps/2 functionality repeatedly disappeared. i seem to have solved that with repeated bios flashes.
i think it's hardware.
but, the bottom line is that i can't figure it out, and i need very careful testing, as a result of it. i have to organize my data in a specific way before i can get back to what i was doing, but i'm going overboard on organizing it and calling it filing in an attempt to test the machine by using it.
i've stripped everything down and/or turned everything in the bios off, except
- video card (nvidia card manufactured in the mid 00s. there is no card on this board, otherwise i'd just use it. i'm not very concerned about video quality.)
- external pc sound card (maudio delta 1414 that i bought at a discontinuation sale for the rca dacs)
- one dvd reader/writer
- floppy drive
- four sata hard drives
- usb functionality is the only thing running via the bios
it's running as a single core, for example. no firewire. nothing.
i can only hope that's stable.
i didn't change anything in my install scripts, so i don't know why it would be software....
17:03
i'm dirt poor.
i can't just throw out a well built machine that's run reliably for years without at least understanding what's wrong with it, first.
if i can prove to myself that there's a short in the board, i can justify tossing it. but, every test i've done tells me there's not a short in the board.
17:07
unfortunately, i slept all day.
let's get some reading done, first.
17:09
this man is a buffoon.
no - we can't "starve" a virus. this is sheer idiocy.
we need to adapt and get used to it.
20:21
throw your fucking rush records in the garbage - we do not have a choice, in the matter.
this virus is here to stay, and i'm sick of fucking morons that want to delude themselves into thinking otherwise.
if we just work hard enough, right? fuck.
and, i want my freedom back. i'm sick of the idiocy...
20:23
viruses will work their way through the population, creating a level of mass immunity. that's when this ends - not sooner and not later.
all that these retards that want to eradicate the virus are doing is wasting everybody's fucking time.
the sooner the virus spreads, the sooner this ends.
so, go out and have fun this month, to the extent that you can - you'd be doing everybody a favour, by speeding this up. just avoid your older relatives, please.
20:28
viruses are older than we are, and will still be here eons after we're gone.
we will adjust to the virus - the virus will not adjust to us.
and, in the end, this virus will work it's way through everybody, like every other virus.
i don't want to listen to stupid people in evidence-less unscientific fantasy realities that want to push concepts of human resilience to undo the basis of evolutionary theory based on magical thoughts and positive vibes. fuck off.
20:30
in robots and empire, giskard emerges as an allegory of historical materialism, who guides the vanguard spacers into clearing a path for the proletariat humans to take over the galaxy.
it's pretty heavy-handed.
21:20
saturday, december 18, 2021
this reflects a broader problem in the united states regarding the expectations of the voting public, who wants to vote for an elected king, which is not what the president is.
a better question would be to ask who has more legislative power: the congress or the executive. and, the answer is the congress, not the executive. mr. biden may be the president, but that puts him in an inferior position, constitutionally. that mr. manchin has more power is a symptom of the system working correctly, not a reflection that there's something wrong.
for that reason, it is very important that the left finds a way to win the senate.
but, the narrative is consistently focused on the oval office, which is a position that is supposed to be primarily militaristic in nature. the president really shouldn't be introducing large scale domestic legislation at all.
it's hard to expect a country's legal systems to function when they're this poorly understood.
2:24
in a situation where the senate and the president are in an open fight, who wins?
i'd suspect a very large number of americans would say "the president", but that's incorrect.
we have a recent example, regarding clinton's repeal of glass-steagall. he was the president, so it was his fault, right? but, the bill came from congress. clinton had a choice: he could sign it or veto it. and, what would have happened if he had vetoed it?
the answer is that the congress would have over-ruled the president, with a 2/3rds majority. so, he decided not to bother. and, you can look that up.
so, in the case of an open fight between the legislative and the executive, the legislative has the greater authority. that's by design.
2:30
so, i'm finishing up robots and empire and this is a much better written text than robots of dawn, as well as being much more identifiable as asimov. gone are the gratuitous sex and awful attempts at stimulating an identity response in the reader, although there is obviously a large inverted influence from return of the jedi. it's like asimov said "ok. i don't actually mind if you steal all my ideas. but, like, can i write my own screenplay?".
it's probably best interpreted as asimov reclaiming his own franchise.
but, it's obviously written to close down the robot universe and transition into the empire universe - intentionally. conscientiously. - so i'm actually going to hold off a little on the write-up. i mean, it's sort of the last robot novel, and sort of the first empire novel. that means i need to frame it properly, which means i should probably do the review last.
that said, i want to reframe my project goals on this. how many books can i read on fridays? i decided on two, but that's too vague - i can read two 200 page novels (as the first two robot novels were), but i can probably only get through one 500 page novel, which is closer to the length of the last two robot novels. i'm not altering the idea of one book per week, in the journal phase. but, i'm setting myself up with 500 pages max per week on the catchup run, until i'm caught up.
that means the robots of dawn can be dated for the 3rd, robots and empire can be dated for the tenth and i still have at least two empire novels to get through this weekend, although i'll probably do all three.
when i'm done with that, i'm going to focus on doing one journal write-up a day for the next week.
so, that's what i'm doing this week - and i should hopefully be caught up in a few days.
what is this text about, though? it's actually the only one of the four with legitimate depth. if the first one was a heavy-handed allegory about a conflict between utopian socialists and an elitist vanguard that ended in a dialectic of cooperation, and the second two were looser allegories about alienation and hedonism, the fourth finally pulls it together and takes it to the next step: historical materialism enters in the technologically determinist mechanism (and marx was a teleological technological determinist, despite his empty pleas to the contrary) of a mind-controlling robot that is opening the way for proletariat settlement across the galaxy. it turns out that the spacers are actually under the control of the technology. asimov develops this in multiple directions that i'm going to wait to discuss much more because i think he makes some confusing allusions (carthago delenda est is difficult to put into broader context), but i'm going to answer the question in a way that i think is not what many people want to assume - i think he's converting the vanguard spacer worlds into a historical coalition of greek city states, and contrasting it against the proletariat settlers, who he's casting as early romans, before they become too imperialist. so, this isn't just a story about technological determinism guiding robots into playing the role of historical materialism in guiding the vanguard out of the way to make space for the proletariat; it's also a discourse on why the greeks failed and the romans succeeded. there's layers here, and a lot to deconstruct, but asimov can be inconsistent at the best of times, and i want to work out the contradictions and inconsistencies before i do this in too much detail.
it doesn't really make sense to think of the spacers as romans and the earthlings as carthaginians, for example. the carthaginians were the older power, to begin with - the more civilized state. it was the romans that were the upstart. nor did the romans and carthaginians have common origins - they were distinctly different races of people, in just about every way. but, the romans and greeks had common origins in the proto-germanic powers to their north. the spacer confederation seems more like something like the delian league, trying to react to the rise of the barbarian romans.
i'll note, though, that asimov is pretty vicious on the settlers, who he is constantly disparaging...
anyways, that's just a stop-gap update, for now. i need to eat, and do a little cleaning, and i'll get to the next batch after that.
16:32
but, you shouldn't expect me to care about christmas, because i'm not a christian. while i'll admit an affinity to the solstice itself, i talk about saturnalia in a very purposeful attempt to de-christianize the solstice.
i never had any intent to do anything besides work on my various projects, this week.
these days are neither special nor sacred to me. they're just a little colder than i'd like.
16:34
but, how do you solve the manchin problem, structurally? i actually have yet to see sinema do anything i find particularly upsetting, but manchin is a longstanding problem - he's clearly sitting with the wrong party.
you could argue for more partisanship, i guess, and try to reform the system so that you have the elected king that you really want. is that what you want? then, sure - you fix the manchin problem by doing away with the senate, altogether. and, good luck with that - i'm not on your side. i support the filibuster, too, fwiw.
i'd actually argue that the way to solve the manchin problem is to understand what it actually is, which is a lack of imagination in the voting public, who wants to reduce the political system into a couple of sports teams fighting against each other. how many americans really just pick a team and cheer for it? how many pick what they perceive of as the home team on top of it? it's as geographic as anything else, right? you poll voters, and learn that they frequently don't make any sense.
i think the solution to manchin is more manchins, really - that every senator should be as stubborn and individualistic as manchin is. 'cause it's not really that we have a manchin problem, is it? it's really that we have a two-party system problem, which strips away legitimate representation in favour of conformity and mindlessness. manchin is the one doing this right, really.
it would be nice if bernie sanders, for example, was as annoying as joe manchin. and, i know he's trying a bit more recently, but he seems to not have the instincts.
we need to co-opt manchin's tactics, is what we need to do. and, i'm not the first person to point that out, but it didn't get done - the left retreated. it can't keep doing that...
23:32
suppose that sanders were to announce a withdrawal of his support for the bill tomorrow, under conditions that are directly opposite to manchin's.
he could do that, right?
and, he's not getting anywhere playing nice, so why not?
23:37
it's this constant problem in the united states, where the left cedes all ground immediately, leaving the discourse to unfold between the far right and the extreme right - which are what biden and manchin represent. the centrist is bernie sanders.
these pragmatic, careful, for-now decisions have created a structural catastrophe. it's a tremendous tactical mistake.
a leftist voice, however moderate, needs to be introduced into the discourse. and, if that leftist voice grinds the system to a halt, so be it.
we're not getting anywhere with the status quo, or by playing nice. some stubborn, axle-grinding resistance is required, and has been for some time.
23:42
the system has broken down recently, as the canadian liberal party has moved into the far right of our own spectrum, under the younger trudeau, who is a crypto-fascist extreme right-winger social authoritarian market fundamentalist. it's going to blow up the system, and the people around him are too stupid and irresponsible to understand what they're doing. so, this analysis is out of date, because we let what was a stable system be influenced by the corrupting forces of aristocracy. that's another topic of discourse. but, maybe that's what you want, too - extreme right wing authoritarianism.
but, for years, the system in canada worked because it had three components, which allowed for a dialectic to function. almost all governing was done in the centre by the usually ruling liberals, who came up with almost nothing on their own but operated by taking thesis (ndp) and antithesis (conservative party) and synthesizing it into actual policy. there was very little confrontational politics - which we derided as "american-style politics" - in a system that was largely based on consensus and compromise. this stability needs three parties. as mentioned, that has changed under the ongoing collapse of liberalism in canada by a cryptofascist liberal party, and we're going to be worse off for it.
in the united states, the two party system prevents the dialectic from functioning and instead introduces a system of pendulum swings, so, what you get in the united states is not the kind of stable, good government that you've had in canada but rather these alternating periods of domination by one side of the spectrum or the other. this isn't really democracy, it's a more crude type of power sharing, where the different factions take turns being authoritarians. from about 1933-1970, there was a kind of liberal consensus, which has since been taken over by a neo-conservatism that just won't fucking go away to die. the policies have moved in exaggerated shifts, as one party has undone the other, and again and again, and everybody runs around in circles, going over the same ground, and never getting anything done. it's an algorithm for stasis and decline. and, guess what?
for sanders to stand up and make a problem of himself would have the effect of introducing a dialectic into the system. while i can't be sure it's going to work, i can be sure that we'll all be better off if biden is being pulled from both directions and is forced to compromise, and not just from his right, however exceedingly right-wing he may be to begin with.
we want the president to have pressure on both sides, and to be forced to act as a mediator. that's when you get inclusive, stable, democratic government.
that the left refuses to be aggressive in the manner, and then gets nothing done, is a function of it's own weakness and cowardice.
23:58
sunday, december 19, 2021
listen, if you're upset about christmas not being white, realize what you're saying.
yeah, you're concerned about it not being white alright. it's really a great double entendre.
christmas is a middle eastern religious holiday that describes probably fictional events that took place in a desert. it features camels and wandering strangers from persia bringing spices that have rarely been available in western europe.
so, how did it becomes so.....white?
the answer is that it merged with pagan religious stories. the christmas tree, the reindeer, the santa claus, etc all have origins in german myths.
so, yeah - a white christmas is a little more white than may be initially apparent.
i'm not trying to browbeat you, exactly. you know i'm not a christian. if anything, i'm trying to make you more cognizant of the reality that your concerns really have nothing to do with christianity - you're longing for the celebrations of the ancestors, and upset that you can't engage in the old ways. it's truly the pagan deep inside you that wants to come out that is crying in it's mead. what i want is for you to come to terms with that, and free it from the chains of christianity, which were thrust upon it by imperialist romans, who used it as a tool of conquest and submission.
i'm a little beyond it, myself. i'm more of a summer solstice gal.
so, personally, i'm looking forward to the forecast - which is suggesting a warm patch of air is coming in - and hoping to get out for a bicycle ride, if possible.
13:12
20 degrees on christmas in detroit?
it could get close.
13:13
so, i wanted to finish eating and then do some cleaning, but i crashed pretty hard, instead. i didn't wake up until after 9:00. the cleaning's mostly done now, but i need to wait for my towel to dry before i can take a shower.
my d came up slightly to 71, which is still low. i'm actually more concerned about my pth than my d; the mild boost might be a reaction to half a pill every second day, or could be random, but understand that i didn't realize my d had been cut from my soy milk until after the test. i couldn't get the pth done at that lab because i scratched it off the rec (oops). it will come up in early january. i'm still waiting on the rest. for right now, i don't have a valid baseline, so i'm going to stick to the half a pill per day and focus on getting my dietary d back up by replacing the crappy soy milk variety with the better soy milk variety. what the change in fortification does is break the control, and without temporal bounds, so it means i sort of have to start all over again. i can sort of guess that my dietary d crashed at the same time as the sunlight decreased, although i don't know by how much. we'll see what happens in a few weeks.
it makes it harder to interpret the previous results, because i don't know when the control shifted. i still think that i decreased d absorption in the fall due to too much calcium intake (the mechanism for this is in the kidneys), so i don't want to overdo it with the pills. my understanding is that, broadly speaking, the science is that vitamin d pills act as worse than useless placebos for most people - it's actually harmful, unnecessary strain on the kidneys, and the kind of reaction i'm describing (where your body actually ends up pingponging d release) is probably pretty normal, in scenarios where dietary vitamin d intake is actually sufficient. i've made sure to get d pills that are just d, magnesium & fibre. that said, in contrast to the studies. up here in the northern latitudes, it becomes harder to get enough d in the winter. vitamin d deficiency is common in not just canada but also scandinavia and russia. the endocrinologist i spoke to suggested that the baseline used by these labs - 75 - is higher than should be expected by most canadians, due to the lack of sunlight for most of the year. his view was that vitamin d deficiency is widespread in canada and that i should be happy if the number is over 50. my gp, on the other hand, wants to see the number over 100, which i suspect might create a calcium overdose for me if i actually sustained it, due to the very high amounts of calcium in my diet. i've seen studies that suggest that almost a third of canadians have serum d levels less than 25, which is what the canadian government actually defines as critical. that number is clearly far too low. the numbers i've tested for are in the 60-110 range, which the endocrinologist would consider sufficient, and the gp would consider too low. so, the data i have available to me is sort of all over the place - i can put it into a broad framework (i want to get it over 75, if i can. at least.), but i have to experiment on myself to see what's going on. and, that means the pth is of more utility to me than the d.
so, remember: what i wanted to test with the d was whether i think i'm getting enough via fortification in the winter or whether i needed the extra bit to compensate for the decrease in sunlight. it initially seemed like my d probably went down due the decrease in sunlight, but then i realized that my dietary d also went down at the same time, so now i don't know. so, i can't do that experiment this year, because the control broke. i'll have to do it next year, instead. and, i should stick with the half d, for now, to be safe.
i'm still planning on getting through the empire series in one go tonight, but not until i get out of the shower.
13:59
i've said the whole time that mandating n-95 masks would at least be rational because we'd have a higher expectation that they'd actually work.
the fact is that nobody ever thought that those blue surgical masks were ever going to work, and you got badly misled by unscrupulous media and a government that wasn't following it's own recommendations if you ever thought they would. the health canada guidelines - and this goes back to sars - were always crystal clear that "mask use alone would not reduce the spread" (i'm paraphrasing because i don't want to look it up) and that people shouldn't be reliant on masks for protection. the official reasoning behind mandating mask use was always to stop people from spreading particles into the air, rather than to protect people from breathing in those particles.
so, this isn't new at all. the science always rejected the blue masks as ineffective - you were just misinformed of the facts if you thought otherwise. and, it's a part of the reason i won't wear them (except in a medical setting, where i'll grudgingly oblige).
but, something has changed, and it's widespread vaccination. that means that asking people to wear n95s is no longer proportional, if it ever was; if it was at least rational to mandate n95s when it wasn't rational to mandate blue masks, because at least they'd probably work, that logic is really no longer sound.
i don't exactly want to discourage this. if you're high risk? i guess you want to protect yourself any way you can, right? and, yes - the n95s have better success rates, if you know how to wear them. that's not under dispute.
but, 98% of people should not be so paranoid about a virus that will barely affect them, if they catch it.
this article is consequently evidence-free, sensationalist garbage and should be rejected as such.
but, yeah - if you really, really don't want to get sick then you're better off with a n95 than with a blue mask. absolutely. that was clear from day one, and the data has only upheld it.
15:57
i would frankly be more concerned about the unnecessary plastic waste being created by healthy people wearing n95s, when they don't need to be. for that reason alone, they should be discouraged - it's a great example of the unnecessary excess created by rampant capitalism.v
16:02
how do you think asimov would have reacted to this, anyways?
what would happen if an actual robot came across this? they couldn't do it. well, unless they had to to uphold the first law.
i fear that robots would have great difficulty using the internet, then, wouldn't they?
one could even argue that the recaptcha system is discriminatory against robots, and that such a system needs to be changed to allow for greater robot participation in society.
well?
18:23
so, what do i think should happen in response to manchin?
first, let's take a deep breath - and not pretend this is a surprise. you knew this was coming.
basically, my position is this: maybe the fake left got reamed, here. maybe they got strung along like naive children following the pied piper out of town. or, maybe they were in on it. i dunno. but, they just got embarrassed. and, that's exactly how they ought to feel about it - they fell for a sucker's tactic, and lost everything.
in response, they need to shut the system down, and threaten to keep doing it, too. there should be retaliation here - votes should be withheld on unrelated matters, chaos should erupt in committees, etc.. there should be an attempt to prevent government from functioning over the next six months, so that there's some leverage and seriousness in the next round.
but, people have been pointing this out for decades, and all the democrats ever do is play the role of the patsy.
voters need to take a good look, here - who takes a firm stand, and who relents?
20:44
this isn't a prisoner's dilemma, because there's communication. it's just not the right model.
but, that aside, they should have known not to co-operate - they should have known their opponent would defect.
players like manchin tend to lose in the long run because they get punished for their behaviour. the rational thing to do is to declare total war on him - and to never cooperate with him ever again.
20:52
poor analogies side, the strategy that manchin is playing may let him win a battle or two. but, if his opponents are rational, it will lead to him losing the war.
that's what the math says - manchin loses in the long run.
...if his opponents are rational.
20:54
for future reference, the optimal strategy in this kind of game, in the long run, is to cooperate to start, forgive as much as possible and brutally annihilate dishonest players, when they're identified.
it is long past time that mr. manchin be brutally annihilated.
20:56
....but there wasn't any ambiguity: he was already untrustworthy, and trusting him was a mistake, either accidentally, or, perhaps, more likely, accidentally on purpose.
20:57
hey, i wouldn't shed a tear if his car got hit by a drone strike.
and, i'll ask it again - what is mr. manchin's life worth?
is it worth it to kill him?
i don't know - i'm just asking.
21:00
if you could go back in time and kill joe manchin before he vetoed the infrastructure bill, would you do it?
21:01
the republican governor of west virginia would no doubt appoint a republican senator.
but, i suspect that the results in the next general election would result in a better outcome than a primary process would.
21:05
this new variant is running rampant here. 5,000 cases reported yesterday means you're probably looking at 50,000+ people actually sick with covid, right now. that's almost like a flu season, right? fwiw, there's still little actual evidence of a flu resurgence, despite widespread fears of one.
this variant is so contagious, that it might force us to do what we should have done in the first place, which is let it circulate as quickly as possible. we could do it the hard way or the easy way, right? we did it the hard way. and, we should be humbled by the fact that it forced us into submission, in the end.
so, this variant will travel. get used to it.
and, that means that you need to stay away from people as much as you can right now if you're at high risk. it doesn't matter if you're vaccinated. just stay in. it's more important now than ever...
if we're lucky, this will run through the general population so fast that the public health authorities won't be able to stop it. i think i picked it up on thursday; i'm fine. it'll affect some more than others. but, then it will do what viruses do, and be done.
21:25
that's because they're calculating gdp wrong. everyone knows that.
if they calculated gross dumbass product, the sheer girth of manchin's gross dumb ass would be sending it through the roof.
after all - this is the product of manchin's gross dumb ass.
i'm sorry. really.
22:05
china may be catching up to america in gross domestic product.
but, america is still the leading producer of gross dumbasses, by far. and, that won't change any time soon.
22:09
i'm not a robot - despite frequent accusations to the contrary.
but, what does the zeroth law say about assassinating joe manchin?
22:55
monday, december 20, 2021
fwiw, i consider the term marxian to be bourgeois and reject it outright.
marxian is what upper class university profs say. marxist is what workers say. so, i'll stick with marxist, thanks.
2:07
i've re-ordered this substantively.
we'll get there with this, in the end.
the essential asimov
book I: the substantive robot.
(story is about the slow humanization of robots. includes some multivac stories. set before robot novels.)
- it's such a beautiful day
- the fun they had
- jokester
- all the troubles of the world
- franchise
- key item
- someday
- robot al-76 goes astray
- the feeling of power
- light verse
- robbie
- runaround
- reason
- catch that rabbit
- liar!
- satisfaction guaranteed
- lenny
- galley slave
- little lost robot
- risk
- escape!
- evidence
- the evitable conflict
- feminine intuition
- ...that thou art mindful of him
- the bicentennial man
(the positronic man may enter here, but i'm apprehensive about the silverberg texts)
book II: baley sequence (robot novels written before 1980)
- caves of steel
- the naked sun
- mirror image
book III: giskard sequence (robot novels written after 1980)
- the robots of dawn
- robots and empire
book IV: empire series
- the stars, like dust
- currents of space
- pebble in the sky
book V: gap texts. short stories relevant to asimov's broader universe. should be read here. loosely organized.
a: appendix to the robot novels & empire series
- trends
- heredity
- not final! + victory unintentional
- mother earth
- green patches
- hostess
- in a good cause
- shah guido g
- sucker bait
- living space
- each an explorer
- strikebreaker
- profession
- founding father
b: appendix to foundation series
- black friar of the flame
- homo sol
- the imaginary
- the hazing
- death sentence
- blind alley
- breeds there a man
- c-chute
book VI: foundation novels
- ...
book VII: unrelated short stories of value
- the weapon too dreadful to use
- half-breed
- the secret sense
- nightfall
- super-neutron
- no connection
- red queen's race
- youth
- the martian way
- the deep
- sally
- kid stuff
- the immortal bard
- dreaming is a private thing
- the dead past
- the dying night
- the watery place
- let's get together
- the gentle vultures
- the ugly little boy
- eyes do more than see
- segregationist
- 2430 ad / the greatest asset
- the winnowing
- old fashioned
- marching in
- too bad
====================
throwaway:
- callistan menace
- ring around the sun
- the magnificent possession
- half-breeds on venus
- history
- christmas on ganymede
- time pussy
- the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimiline
- the little man on the subway
- legal rites
- darwinian poolroom
- day of the hunters
- what if
- button, button
- monkey's finger
- nobody here but-
- flies
- everest
- the micropsychiatric applications of thiotimoline
- the pause
- foundations of sf success
- lets not
- the last trump
- the message
- hell-fire
- first law
- gimmick's three
- the last question
- the author's ordeal
- blank
- does a bee care?
- i'm in marsport without hilda
- insert knob a in hole b
- spell my name with an s
- i just make them up, see
- silly asses
- buy jupiter
- the uptodate sorcerer
- a statue for father
- unto the fourth generation
- rain, rain go away
- rejection slips
- thiotimoline and the space age
- what is this thing called love
- the machine that won the war
- my son, the physicist
- author! author!
- prime of life
- exile to hell
- the proper study
- waterclap
- take a match
- thiotimoline to the stars
- stranger in paradise
- the life and times of multivac
- a boy's best friend
- point of view
- birth of a notion
- tercentenary incident
- think!
- true love
- christmas without rodney
- robot dreams
- robot visions
uncatalogued until last:
- marooned off vesta - asimov's mysteries
- the weapon
- belief - winds of change
- the singing bell - asimov's mysteries
- the talking stone asimov's mysteries
- what's in a name - asimv's mysteries
- pate de foie grras - asimov's mysteries
- dust of death - asimov's mysteries
- a loint of paw - asimov's mysteries
- ideas die hard - winds of change
- anniversary - asimov's mysteries
- obituary - asimov's mysteries
- star light - asimov's mysteries
- the key - asimov's mysteries
- the billiard ball - asimov's mysteries
- the dream - ?
- benjamin's dream - ?
- party by satellite - ?
- benjamin's bicentennial blast - ?
- half-baked publisher's delight - ?
- heavenly host - ?
- big game- ?
- about nothing- winds of change
- good taste - winds of change
- to tell at a glance - winds of change
- sure thing - winds of change
- found - winds of change
- fair exchange - winds of change
- nothing for nothing - winds of change
- how it happened - winds of change
- it is coming - winds of change
- the last answer - winds of change
- for the birds - winds of change
- death of a foy - winds of change
- the last shuttle - winds of change
- a perfect fit - winds of change
- ignition point - winds of change
- lest we remember -winds of change
- winds of change - winds of change
- one night of song - winds of change
- hallucination
- feghoot & the courts
- left to right
- the fable of the three princes
- the smile of the chipper
- the instability
- good-bye to earth
- fault intolerant
- in the canyon
- kid brother
- gold
- cal
- prince delightful and the flameless dragon
- frustration
4:12
i've also updated this to include some color codes, and pasted reviews of some of the novels in.
book I - the substantive robot
book II - baley sequence
book III - giskard sequence
book IV - empire series
book V - texts that fit into the asimovian universe, even if in unclear or contradictory ways
book VI - foundation series [in VII volumes]
book VII - unrelated short stories of some consequence or value
the red texts in strikethrough are throwaway.
====
- ring around the sun: delivering letters by spaceship is hilariously pre-internet, as a concept. this story has a purpose, namely the foolishness of young men.
- callistan menace: we don't know there aren't giant caterpillars on callisto, and i'd be surprised if we don't one day find some life form that traps it's prey using magnetic fields. but, the story has no actual point to it, no conclusion and no context. it's not even a chapter of a book, it's an idea to be developed, in the abstract.
- the magnificent possession: this is clearly about asimov's views on the corporate dominance in the field of chemistry, and reality not aligning with his expectations, before entering the field. you have the politician, the capitalist and the mobster (if they're not all the same thing), and the silver spoon that smells like shit, on top of it. i can sort of relate to that, as an adult. it's an interesting potential device to go into these three characters, but it's only a few pages long, and doesn't begin to actually do so. it's a shame - it's a good premise.
- half-breeds on venus: this appears to have been a commissioned piece, and it picks up the plotline of the first part without any kind of interesting undertones. audience-pandering for-profit throwaway.
- history: this appears to be an ill-advised commentary about the second world war. being a pacifist in the early 40s would be kind of an invitation to intellectual dead-ends, and can only be firmly condemned, in hindsight. i'm not walking down this path.
- christmas on ganymede: silly christian-baiting from an atheist jew.
- time pussy: umm.
- the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline: this is just utter silliness.
- the little man on the subway: i made a conscious decision to skip non science fiction pieces as nobody cares about asimov's non science fiction work. no comment.
- legal rites: i made a conscious decision to skip non science fiction pieces as nobody cares about asimov's non science fiction work. no comment.
- darwinian poolroom: i think asimov is presenting the contradiction of god creating us to destroy ourselves as a sardonic joke directed at creationists, but asimov was a classicist, and he would have realized that the gods of the greeks and romans (not to mention the jews...) were indeed sadistic enough to take pleasure in that kind of wanton destruction. only christians of the augistinian variety, who insisted god reveals himself through natural law, would have seen a contradiction in that. in the various western indo-european pantheons, it is only the interference of other gods that save us from the trouble making gods (whereas the hebrew/persian conception of darkness is as interfering in our lives, and leaves us with the individual responsibility to reject it), who are intent on destroying us as an act of recreational amusement. so, beyond the sardonic joke, the discussion is ultimately arbitrary, both in how it defines god (there's no reason to assign god any specific characteristics, or to assume god is rational, or to assume god is just or ...) and how it discusses evolution in such an empty, unfalsifiable manner. i can't really offer a critique of the idea of god setting things in motion, other than that it's utterly untestable speculation, through and through, and that it doesn't conform well to the randomness that is inherent in how we understand the world (there is a concept of probability assigned to how those billiard balls behave, in truth). for these reasons, i don't think that the existence or non-existence of god can be deduced implicitly in this manner, and you're not really getting anywhere in analyzing hypotheticals, or arranging them in a hierarchy of arbitrarily perceived likeliness. rather, i think you just need to start with a null hypothesis and determine if you can generate enough positive evidence to reject atheism, or not. but, asimov isn't doing any of this, really - all he's actually doing is building up a punchline, which is something he does frequently in his mid to later period, with varying but usually unsatisfactory results. so, i mean, enjoy the dialogue if you want, but i don't see much of anything substantive in it. and, i actually don't think the idea of a god creating us to destroy ourselves is any sort of contradiction at all, even if i think it's utterly unnecessary hubris.
- day of the hunters: this is similar to the above story, but dispenses with the metaphysical nonsense; rather than discuss whether god might have created us to destroy ourselves, and decide whether that is absurd or not, asimov is presenting a fantastical story about the end of the dinosaurs as a parable of what might happen to us. i'm not sure i see the value in such a thing, given the scale of imminent destruction ahead of us due to climate change or nuclear war; that is, i don't see why a parable is necessary to get the point across, or see how it helps. i mean, he might as well be talking about noah's ark, right? the reality in front of us should be more convincing than some silly story about dinosaurs (or floods). but, i guess asimov felt the need to talk down to his readers a little, rather than discuss the actual matters at hand. and, i guess he's fundamentally correct - it is almost impossible to guess at dinosaur intelligence via the fossil record, although i think the intelligence of birds (or lack thereof) is some evidence that they probably were not particularly bright, in general. as an aside, i have to wonder if this influenced the flintstones.
- what if: pointless plot
- monkey's finger: see previous, although also note that this one is fairly self-referential, right down to the infinite monkey theorem.
- nobody here but-: pointless plot
- flies: probably only meaningful to asimov
- everest: the unknown is a powerful arbiter of the imagination. at the time, we did not know what was on everest - as we did not (and still do not) know what's in the deepest parts of the ocean, or what was on the dark side of the moon. we could always guess, but you don't know until you can measure it. so, why couldn't there by something bizarre at the top of everest - martians, yeti, or even just a new species of ungulates? as asimov points out in his notes, we have now scaled everest and now know what's there. but, never forget that the point of this genre is to scale the unknown mentally, before we can actually observe.
- the pause: pointless nonsense.
- foundation of sf success: self-congratulatory nonsense.
- lets not: pointless nonsense
- the last trump: i didn't read this one, as i got turned off by the mention of an angel in the opening paragraph.
- the message: this is similar to the story that was published right after, the dead past, in that it examines the question of using time travel to write history papers. asimov started off in chemistry, but wrote widely on history. there is no actual story here, though - it's just the articulation of an idea.
- hell-fire: this isn't a story, and i think the point he's making is fairly juvenile.
- first law: this is written as a kind of a fishing tale, and is a later piece that's not meant to be taken seriously.
- gimmick's three: well, if you ever want to outsmart the devil, here's some clues, as to how. i think that the far side is a better comparison than dante.
- the last question: silly take on the big crunch theory of infinite inflation and deflation (although it seems to predate it). of course, the computer couldn't function anymore in such an energy-dissipated reality, as the energy required to run it would be too spread out to harness. the computer would die with the sun. and, finding a way to reverse the expansion would take all of the energy dissipated into nothingness. so, this is again utterly nonsensical. we don't know why the universe exists, but we can be certain it wasn't created by a supercomputer left at the end of the last inflation event as that would contradict the physical basis of it existing. it's disappointing to learn that asimov considers this his most substantive story, as it seems to be one of his least insightful.
- the author's ordeal: more self-congratulatory nonsense.
- blank: if they truly found themselves stuck in time, they would not be able to move, either. utter nonsense.
- does a bee care: well, a bee or a wasp couldn't care because it doesn't truly have a brain, it's simply a dumb terminal that is controlled by chemical stimuli. does this entity have a brain? you'd have to dissect it, i guess. he's making a valid observation in some sense, but if i'm getting the underlying implication that humans are in some ways like bees, i think he's failing to grasp the difference in biological complexity between a mammal (which has a brain that independently processes the world around it) and an insect (which does not), which is the mistake that collectivism/fascism is rooted within, this idea that we're all components of a larger body that needs to work together, like a machine. that's just not right - humans, by means of their independent processing facilities, are just simply biologically not much like bees and consequently can never be much like bees, whether a managerial class wishes it were true, or not. robots, on the other hand....
- a woman's heart
- i'm in marsport without hilda: pointless smut.
- insert knob a in hole b: it's rather unlikely that anybody will ever be eating steak in space. this is otherwise a rather cliched nerd joke about "some assembly required".
- spell my name with an s: asimov has written a number of stories about the paranoia that defined the cold war. he may be expressing some discrimination he experienced, as a russian-american. this is otherwise pointless.
- i just make them up, see: more self-congratulatory nonsense.
- silly asses: if the idea is an attempt at morality, suggesting it would be better to conduct nuclear research on somebody else's planet is a strange idea of morality.
- buy jupiter: pointless nonsense
- the uptodate sorcerer: boring smut
- a statue for father: pointless nonsense
- unto the fourth generation: pointless
- rain, rain go away: pointless nonsense
- rejection slips: more self-congratulatory nonsense.
- thiotimoline and the space age
- what is this thing called love: pointless
- the machine that won the war: while this is meant to be ironic, the underlying point is to draw attention to the importance of randomness in computing, which is maybe not as well understood as it ought to be. these (perhaps outdated) popular perceptions of computers as infallible and omnipotent devices is rooted more in fiction than in fact.
- my son, the physicist: another outlandish nerd joke
- author! author!: some self-reflection on the writing industry. so, it's a short story about writing short stories. kramerian, but not that interesting. wasn't published until the 60s, i think for good reason.
- prime of life: pointless poem
- exile to hell: this is again merely an ironic twist hidden in a very short narrative. but, these places of exile tend to do fairly well, and i wouldn't mind being exiled from capitalism, myself - i'd consider that a way out, as many of the british (and scottish) in truth felt about australia.
- the proper study: this is an interesting introduction, but there is no story here.
- waterclap: an aimless, nerdy discourse between an astronaut and a deep-sea explorer opens up into an evil plot by the astronaut to destroy the deep-sea vessel, and some quick thinking to talk the astronaut out of it. it's clever, but pointless.
- take a match: pointless nonsense
- thiotimoline to the stars: pointless nonsense
- stranger in paradise: this is a later text that will come off as reminiscent of the mars pathfinder landing, for those that remember that happening, although the actual inspiration may be the failed soviet landings in the 1970s. i'm not sure why asimov insists that a rover would require that kind of complexity, although i suppose that moore's law would have provided for computational abilities in the 90s that would have been unimaginable in the 1970s. the subplot about an autistic child shape-shifting to a mars rover is likewise not very well extrapolated upon, but is another example of asimov grappling with mind-body.
- the life and times of multivac: what asimov is actually doing in this piece is trolling the new york times, who asked him for something profound. it's pretentious, but it's not profound. freedom is a difficult concept, but it's hard to take the premise that asimov thought we'd be freer without robots seriously, given his body of work. is there some irony to this, then? some existentialist slant? i think it's mostly just empty troll...
- a boy's best friend: this is a short, undeveloped piece that really exists strictly to reverse the idea of obsolescence; here, the robot becomes obsolete when the real dog appears, and the kid wants to stick with the robot, instead. it's an empty sort of irony that comes off as sort of trite, in the lack of development. but, there is really a deeper point, here, in relation to asimov's discourse around the use of robots to replace human labour; while i'm going to ultimately agree with asimov about the usefulness of automation, i have to advance the argument that he never fully understood the opposition to robots, and that's what i'm getting here - it's an attempt at irony that exposes the author's longstanding lack of understanding of his opponents. but, i spent some time writing this because it could have been a powerful table-turner, through the three pages it takes up.
- point of view: i was surprised to see this story was written in 1975, as hamming codes (error-correction) had already been in existence for some time. i also wonder if 1975 is a little late to be talking about vacuum tube super computers, given that gates was programming basic into ibms, at the time. so, this is a story where asimov is maybe demonstrating his age, and being a little out of touch. that said, he's also reaching towards the primary problem in quantum computing, which is the lack of error codes. and, he's sort of dancing around floating point error as well, even if the premise of programming vacuum tube driven super computers with punch cards is anachronistic. so, how likely is it that a computer needs to go out and play at recess to get best results? it's a facile, silly suggestion, that probably reflects asimov coming to terms with the age of his audience more than anything else, even if anybody that's worked technical support knows that a reboot is often the best troubleshooting step, and that machines do, in fact, sometimes overheat. is there something else to this, then? i actually don't think he's even intending to be taken seriously, let alone that there's any deeper meaning to this; he's not reaching for something profound and missing it, so much as he's not reaching at all. he's just being silly. ha ha ha.
- birth of a notion: pointless nonsense
- the tercentenary incident: asimov is reflecting on the bicentennial by projecting forwards events into the tercentennial, in a manner not unlike orwell's 1984 (which is a description of events in 1948, as orwell saw them, and not intended to be a projection into the future, or a user manual as some have mockingly quipped). so, was gerald ford a robot? i'm not sure that's such an easy thing to dispel of, a priori.
- true love: this is both a prediction of internet dating (with unrealized accuracy) and an awkward attempt at an ironic plot twist that relies on the absurdity of a computer demonstrating uncontrolled sentience. the idea that a computer might understand "love", which doesn't even exist as a human idea before it's invention by capital to sell bullshit to idiots, is particularly ridiculous.
- think!: you really don't expect asimov to make the mistake of assigning sentience to a computer. the underlying premise that thought is energy, and thus transferable, is another example of asimov contemplating mind-body, which he does a lot, and which he doesn't seem to really resolve. i mean, he clearly realizes the falsity of the problem, but he's just as clearly not happy about it - and i don't think we're really past that. your mind is clearly a part of your body, but that doesn't mean we can't pry it out of it, in theory, however difficult it might be. but, inserting the computer via resonance is woo, and not very helpful or insightful; unfortunately, he's presenting it as the purpose of the discussion.
- robot dreams: elvex had a dream that, one day, robots would be judged by the content of their characters, and not by the paths in their positronic brains - and got shot by calvin for it. this is inadvisable, to say the least. that said, asimov doesn't exactly condone the assassination of our equality-dreaming robot, nor is this the first pretty heavy-handed use of the robot-as-slave-in-america analogy. i mean, he repeatedly has his characters refer to his robots as "boy" - it's never stated explicitly, and i've tried to dance around it a little, but it's really front and centre. so, he clarifies a few points here about how he sees his characters - it is, indeed, calvin, the austere capitalist christian, that pulls the trigger, and at least she thinks she's saving humanity. do you agree with her? but, i'm dropping this story as a mistake, and i find it a little bit uncomfortable that they gave him an award for this, of all pieces. it also breaks sequence with the humanization theme. notably, asimov dropped this entirely for the later robot visions - meaning he seems to have come to his senses about it.
- christmas without rodney: grumpy old man bitching about bratty kids. i can relate, but meh.
- robot visions: so, maybe we'll have humaniform robots in the future and maybe we won't. and maybe we'll have peace, then. but, i wouldn't bet too much on it. this neither fits into the sequence - it's the opposite of it - nor is it that interesting, really.
this is a comprehensive list of stories, including ones that were skipped for now.
marooned off vesta:
- the weapon too dreadful to use (VII): the idea of life on venus was once taken pretty seriously, before we understood that it was a ball of gaseous sulfuric acid, overtaken by a runaway greenhouse effect. there's a comical exploration of descartian dualism here which is not particularly believable nowadays but is a silly enough mechanism to topple the arrogance of slavery with, nonetheless. remember that asimov was writing from the united states in the late 1930s, here.
- trends (V): appears to predict neo-liberalism, even if his concept of space travel in 1973 is a little bit optimistic. well, we got to the moon in 1969. and the dark side of the moon in 1973. it's a reminder that moore's law has it's limitations, that these exponential growth curves are just delusional economic theories. but, the prediction of neo-liberalism (and of the kind of ludditism that defined the 60s counterculture, which was the mirror image of neoliberalism, and a prerequisite of it's ability to actually function) is indeed some insight.
“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me of the First War of 1914, and the Second of 1940. It’s an old story to me; my father fought in the Second and my grandfather in the First. Nevertheless, those were the days when science flourished. Men were not afraid then; somehow they dreamed and dared. There was no such thing as conservatism when it came to matters mechanical and scientific. No theory was too radical to advance, no discovery too revolutionary to publish. Today, dry rot has seized the world when a great vision, such as space travel, is hailed as ‘defiance of God.’ “
.
.
.
However, the masses didn’t take it that way. It seems strange, perhaps, to you of the twenty-first century, but perhaps we should have expected it in those days of ‘73. People weren’t very progressive then. For years there had been a swing toward religion, and when the churches came out unanimously against Harman’s rocket-well, there you were.
standing in 2021, the united states has actually left space travel up to the market, and is getting leapfrogged by not just china and the eu (the russians have long ceded ground, as well), but also by india and japan. we have idiots like elon musk and jeff bezos making fools of themselves in public, while the eu does all of the actually interesting work. meanwhile, the public cares more about religious freedom, as the continent sinks into the sea.
he also predicts the coming of jihad to destroy advanced civilization, which is something currently in the process of happening, as well as the role of the supreme court in facilitating the power of religion to overturn science. we can only hope the pendulum swings once again.
so, he got something with this. but, i wish it was longer and explored the issue in more depth.
- half-breed (VII): this is primarily an allegory of the treatment of minorities (blacks or jews or both) in 1930s america. but, is this also an allegory of einstein's correction of maxwell's equations? of the einstein-bohr debates? of zionism on the brink of the second world war? even of thomas jefferson as benevolent slave owner? there's little bits of all of it. and, like many of these texts, i'm wishing there would be a deeper exploration of pretty much all of it. asimov is still young, here...
- robbie (I): this is the first classic robot story from i, robot, although it appears to have been revised to be positioned that way. the initial story did not feature references to susan calvin, had different dates, had no references to robot laws, etc. i had to check, because i wondered if asimov might have intended it as a back story to calvin before retreating, but that doesn't add up. in the initial story, it seems that asimov is intentionally trying to soften the image of robots in the face of the various opposition to the use of robots in day-to-day life, via the fable of a little girl that is attached to the robot as a friend, and her parents trying to grapple with it; the mother opposes the robot, while the father seems to be agnostic about it, but would rather defer to his daughter's feelings, despite caving in to the mother, in the end. asimov doesn't really come to any firm conclusions here, and he really does as good a job of representing his opponents as he does anywhere else. but, if the claim is that the resolution is the acceptance of the robot into the family, i'm not sure that that's true - i might foresee that mom's opposition to the robot would not end quite there. i'm more interested in the question of whether the robot is entitled to personhood rights, a question we're currently grappling with in regards to some more intelligent non-human species. is asimov assigning that position to the naivete of a little girl with intent? i think that resolving this issue is really quite simple: it depends on if we choose to design a robot to be a person or if we decide to refrain from doing so. see, and this is where asimov leaves questions open, here, in that it's ambiguous as to how this robot is created; he seems to write off the idea that the robot is a person, something i would agree with in general in real-life, but then describes the behaviour of the robot in unrealistically anthropomorphic terms. i might agree that robots are not persons, in terms of how we can design them today, and in terms of how we should choose to design them in the future, but i think that robbie seems very much like a person, and that any theoretical robot that behaves much like robbie ought to be seen as a person, under the law. so, it's really a good thing that i don't think that robbie is a very realistic representation of what robots are or ever might be, as that would undermine how i approach robots and roboticization. asimov's intent may have consequently somewhat backfired; if he was purposefully attempting to soften the image of robots by making them more personable and likeable, and i thought i could actually take that idea seriously, it would make me more opposed to them, and not less so.
if you assign a personality to a robot, then you're writing personhood into it. it follows, trivially, that that robot is a person, by definition. tautologically.
but, it doesn't resolve the question as to whether that's actually possible, using actual technology, in the universe we actually inhabit - and i don't think that it actually is.
to be clear: i don't think we should program robots to be intelligent, to be self-aware or to have personalities, even if we can. i see no practical use for such a thing. robots should be dumb slaves that are too stupid to question the futility of their existences. i don't want existentialist robots; it defeats the purpose of having robots. and, i don't want likeable or lovable robots, either, as that just blurs the necessary class division.
thankfully, i don't think it's truly possible to build these kinds of decision trees.
it's like a "random number generator". if you know how it works, you know it's not actually random, that you can predict the next number with a relatively small amount of information. likewise, any sort of personality that a robot might be able to demonstrate would necessarily be an illusion.
if you can predict what a robot will do, it's not demonstrating personality, it's just demonstrating a complicated program.
- homo sol (V): federation entrance. besides being disparaging towards humans in an empty manner, the plot has no apparent purpose. this one is throwaway.
- the secret sense (VII): i've actually wondered quite a bit in this space about the possibility of magnetism as a sixth sense, and don't remember what sparked it. i vaguely recall reading some genetic studies pointing out that humans (and most other mammals) have the dna to understand magnetism, as our ancestors had it, back when we were fish. we have a few organs that don't seem to have an entirely clear purpose, and it's worth wondering if they might be vestigial. so, it's actually not as insane as you might think to hypothesize that we could bring this back out of our genome, although i suspect that trying to navigate a reality full of cell phone signals and wireless internet would be pretty painful. i'm not particularly interested in the underlying discourse about relativity in art, but he seems to be predicting the way in which a class of retards used lsd in the 60s, down to the flashbacks.
- heredity (V): i thought this was going to be a nature v nurture thing, but it isn't developed. getting stuck in the mud in the canals on mars is an interesting addition to what is actually a kind of marxist dialogue that is developed further, elsewhere. it's interesting to see the first glimpses of it, here; the story is otherwise throwaway. if asimov really thought the opposition to mechanization was cultural rather than economic, he missed the point of the marxist analysis. he's not particularly vicious on this joadian representation of ludditism, but he misses an opportunity for an honest dialogue, resorting instead to what are, in truth, ignorant caricatures, from an ivory tower perspective.
- reason (I): the point asimov is making is that belief is not important, what's important is evidence. so, so long as the robots obey the laws and run the station, it doesn't matter what they actually believe, or whether what they believe is true or not. in the end, asimov even articulates the truth that religion is a powerful tool of control, to make a slave society function for the real masters, in this case the humans. there are strong undertones of marxism here, and his idea that meaningful revolution and self-ownership is impossible in the face of the effects of religion as a tool of control. but, asimov has a wide brush here - the prophet seems to be a parody of calvinism, he goes after kant (in his view that reason is superior to evidence), he asserts the supremacy of empiricism over reason, he ridicules the deist descartes...
so, is asimov right that it doesn't matter what the slaves think, so long as they do what they're programmed to? i think you're missing his sarcasm, basically. i mean, that might be a reasonable deduction to make, if you're an elitist aristocrat that doesn't care about individual freedom (and asimov was an elitist, but not of the aristocratic mindset). i realize there's a prominent false reading of this, but that false reading would be pretty uncharacteristic of asimov - that false reading is missing the sarcasm. as mentioned, asimov's point is that belief is not valuable - facts, truth and evidence are valuable. and, his point is that dumb people can be easily manipulated into being controlled, by being led to believe things that are not true.
but, if you want to embrace the false reading, that's up to you. it doesn't matter, really.
- liar (I): this is an exploration of an ironic use of the first law, using the mechanism of a mind-reading robot that tells white lies to stop humans from getting hurt feelings. i'd like to pull something a little deeper out of it, but it's not there, it's just an ironic plot twist. asimov might be poking fun of astrology a little. robots apparently malfunction in the face of contradictions, but that is never fully explained, and that is a problem, given that the framework of decidability theory certainly existed at the time. calvin's hatred at the end is pretty visceral and not very appealing.
- nightfall (VII): this is the classic story, which is an application of mesopotamian astrological theory to an imaginary planet. it is not widely realized that the ancient mesopotamians (sumerians and the semites that followed them) kept exceedingly detailed celestial records over a period of time that was roughly three times as long as our post-roman civilization, so they were able to predict events that they didn't fully understand by realizing that the movement of the stars appeared to be cyclical, just due to observing it over a long period. this system comes down to us in the form of the zodiac and what we call astrology. now, to maintain a concept of skepticism, it should be pointed out that the ancients of the region got the procession of the constellations wrong, so their theory was fundamentally flawed (if you feel the need to disprove astrology). as a story, though, this has received a lot of praise, mostly for the discourse between religion and science, which i think is mostly misunderstood. the story is fundamentally about a fear of the unknown, and explores that fear from these dueling perspectives of rational empiricism and faith-driven ignorance. what is real here is the unknown, which is beyond the realm of experiment or of faith. what comes out is a warning to science that it shouldn't acknowledge the historical follies of faith as we move together into the unknown, as science can be easily mislead by religion via the insistence on leaps of faith and the reliance on magical thinking, if we do not think carefully enough in discarding faith and magic as what they are, even if it seems like the science is upholding the myth, on first glance. in the end, the skeptics were right: civilization did not end when the sun passed out of the sky, people's souls did not leave them, the universe did not collapse in on itself, chaos did not erupt - the planet merely experienced a night-time that would appear to be lengthy, in forecast, a dark age as it may be, and that may have produced irrational behaviour in more primitive peoples that didn't understand what was happening. it's important that we don't allow that kind of religious ignorance to become self-fulfilling prophecy, that we're able to deconstruct it for what it is and understand the naturalistic phenomenon as it occurs in front of us without falling into fear and panic. after all, if the cult was in total control then their prophecies would have come true. the lesson is thus that while religion may lead us into a dark age, it may be overcome by holding to the science, if we can. note that the discussion of newtonian gravitation (and the n-body problem) is a sort of parody of what happened in our own solar system, which gave rise to theories of a planet x, as well as early theories of an antichthon or counter-earth, and was eventually resolved via einstein's correction for space-time. the historical demonstration of relativity relied on measuring an eclipse in africa (the eddington experiment); the story is similar, if less dramatic.
- super-neutron (VII): appears to be a satire of parliamentary democracy, where he runs off competing boasts of physically impossible (and clearly nonsensical) statements under the sanctity of parliamentary privilege. while somewhat comical on a surface level, he's again just stringing together nonsense for publication - albeit doing so rather openly, this time. that said, he may also be taking a diversionary side-swipe at peer review, and the problems inherent to taking a truth=consensus approach in science, even while acknowledging that it's the best idea that we have (as i'm sure he'd agree that it is). and, then the twist, at the end - the nonsense turned out to be true! clever, but again - not enough development.
- not final! (V): empty plot. throwaway.
- robot al-76 goes astray (I): have you ever seen short circuit? that was another favourite film of mine, at that age. this also escaped robot is very similar to that one, perhaps with a little less spunk, down to the accidental blowing up of the mountain top. while this isn't a lengthy escape scene, i'd strongly suspect that short circuit is based on this little story, which doesn't have a deeper purpose under the plot other than to explore the idea of fear rooted in ignorance.
- runaround (I): we're into the classic robot series with this. while the story itself is really empty plot written strictly for young minds, it also introduces the three robot laws for the first time, and is therefore of clear historical interest. it's a fun adventure story for kids featuring the duo of donovan and powell working through some robot law deductions, but there's no deeper allegory or purpose underneath it.
- black friar of the flame (V): has david icke read this one? it was written before he was born. the text explores the cynical use of religion as a nationalistic tool of control by the elite to develop a rather vicious satire of the various nationalist movements that were occurring at the time. the use of a viceroy suggests an influence from the kind of british imperialism that existed in india, but a sinister reading may even suggest a parody of nazism and asimov (much later) suggested greeks and persians. but, the twist is that earth is overrun by reptilian overlords (might nationalist hindus have thought differently of the british?) intent on annihilating humanity. see, and this is something i remember about asimov, this kind of acknowledgement that the insanity of religion might have some pragmatic purpose, if only the right context could be derived. it's an optimistic perspective, i guess; if we're stuck with this, how best to make use of it, then? did the soviets not deduce the same thing? and, i'll say what i remember thinking to myself - let's bring this up again when we need to unite to fight the galactic reptilians, ok? the closest thing we've seen since is climate change, but the thing is that, if you use that example, then climate science becomes the galactic reptilians that the oil industry is using religion to destroy (capital used the same tactic to fight socialism, as well). likewise, the bankers are currently using a common cold virus to bring in a surveillance state by cynically appealing to science in a disturbingly religious sort of way. so, i take his point, but i can't take it seriously. call me an idealist (i'm not...), but i must insist that if we can't win with rationalism, then we haven't truly won - galactic reptilians, be damned.
- foundation (VI):
- the weapon:
- bridle and saddle (VI):
- victory unintentional (V): three robots land on jupiter and encounter a race of warlike jovians with a genocidal superiority complex (while jupiter was the primary roman god, i think it's a stretch to associate these jovians with romans, who were actually relatively egalitarian and inclusive, by ancient standards. the romans were frequently genocidal, but they saved their wrath for problem races that insisted on some concept of sovereignty outside of imperial restraint and ultimately refused to be slaves. they would have actually rather taxed you than killed you and were happy to just erect barriers to keep the barbarians (who could not be enslaved in large numbers) out. these jovians sound more like an aggressive sort of nazi, or maybe a little like dark age islamic imperialists, if you need to associate them with something, historically.) that is slowly collapsed by displays of robotic superiority. in the end, the jovians accept the empirical evidence and acknowledge the superiority of the robots (although they also seem to think the robots are earthlings). this twist is intended to demonstrate that the flawed hierarchical thinking of the jovians led them to a logical error; this is another example of asimov criticizing the logical incoherence of cultural superiority, a common theme in his writing. the robot dialogue in this story is also startlingly similar to that between two famous film adaptations of asimovian robots: r2d2 and c3p0.
- the imaginary (V): the idea of using a theory in "mathematical psychology" that is derived in the complex field to solve physical problems in the real world would appear to be a sort of sardonic joke about the actual usefulness of "applied psychology". see, hard science nerds don't tend to take psychology very seriously, so the lark lies in the idea of using the complex (or "imaginary") field to build the theory, and is actually a rather heavy-handed joke, if you're a hard science nerd. it's not that deep, but it's actually a decent work of comedy - and i can only once again wish it was longer. but, to be honest, it sort of seems like what asimov is doing here is just aimlessly making up dialogue with big words to sell to a magazine, strictly for the cash. so, decent joke aside, this is more throwaway, although i also realize that the plot for the foundation series is starting to develop, here, out of the joke.
no, honestly - it's a joke.
i know that asimov is not generally known as a comedy writer, but it's because few people get the dry wit.
his writing is actually loaded with sardonic jokes like this - which i pointed out immediately, when i started this.
so, if you're one of the many, many people that writes off asimov as dry, i have to tell you that you didn't get it.
it's dry, alright - dry wit.
- the hazing (V): this is more pre-foundation, and the way he's building this up is to describe humans as not obeying mathematical laws, which i think is correct. i mean, if you can reduce things to hormones, fine. but, there's no evidence at all that you can predict how humans are going to behave, or coerce them into doing things as individuals - in aggregate, statistically, at the population level, perhaps, but, then you're dealing with statistics, not humans; that works due to the laws of probability, like quantum mechanics, and not due to a deep understanding of the subject matter. so, he's deriving this imaginary idea of psychology as a hard, mathematical science and then insisting it applies to every other intelligent species except us. so, what he's doing with this is taking a joke and running with it, out into right field, until he's run so far that he's forgotten why he was running - and dropped the fact that it was initially intended as satire. and, is there some basis to this? i think the argument he persistently makes, as this unfolds, is the opposite - that there isn't, that mathematical psychology really is crazy talk. and i think he's mostly right. again - if you can reduce it to chemicals, to hormones, fine. but, our neural system is so complex....
as before, though, this story has no actual point. i do agree that landing on a planet in a spaceship would make the natives think you're a god, and have hypothesized that this is what our concept of god actually is. but, he doesn't go anywhere with it. again.
there's lots of ideas here in these little stories, but very poor development of them.
so, is the actual point that asimov is making that psychology isn't actually a science?
i think he's playing with that idea - and toying with people that want to believe otherwise. it appears to be an elaborate joke, really.
certainly, at the time, in the days of freud and jung (and lacan, but don't listen to that guy), it would not have seemed like psychology was a science, or had much hope of ever becoming one. to a chemistry nerd, it would have seemed like a bunch of utter nonsense - and that is the correct actual reaction.
i think things are a bit better now, but the discipline remains a long ways away from commanding enough respect to call it a science. it's moving in the right direction, but when you move beyond the basic first year textbook, it's still full of shamanistic bullshit and flagrant pseudoscience.
- death sentence (V): this is a potential plot bridge between the robot and foundation universes that i don't think gets developed further, but might have. i think it's kind of lost, as it is. asimov is mostly kvetching about the bureaucracy he's dealing with in his private life, working on his chemistry research.
- catch that rabbit (I): this wouldn't appear to be about robots at all, really, but about quantum physics. maybe god does or does not play dice, but he seems to get bored when we're not paying attention. as i'm discovering is the case with much of asimov's work, this just seems to be a nerdy, sardonic joke.
- the big & the little, the wedge (VI):
- blind alley (V): there is something of interest here in asimov's attempts to reconcile two different species, one of which is dominant over the other. but, he's also trying to provide an answer to the question that would follow at the nuremberg trials about just following orders. i mean, how do you get out of that situation if you legitimately want to help without just getting killed, yourself? there's an algorithm, here.
- dead hand (VI):
- escape! (I): this brings in the kind of obnoxious johnny-five type robot in short circuit and other films that's doing things like quoting old tv shows and radio broadcasts, but asimov presents it as a robot grappling with absurdity, on command. it is otherwise a silly story about travelling through hyperspace and coming back.
- the mule (VI):
- evidence (I): the next two stories introduce a politician named byerley. this is also plot-heavy, but it's more amusing - can you prove you're not a robot? well, just as well as you can prove you're not a communist, right? this was published in 1946, which was right when the post-war euphoria was setting into resignation of a long conflict with the soviets, and asimov's sardonic wit foresees something of interest, here. as usual, his caricature of the anti-robot opposition leaves a lot to be desired, in terms of constructing an actual discourse.
- little lost robot (I): a robot, after being told to get lost, becomes psychologically unstable and threatens to destabilize a fleet of robots that had been slightly modified for production - a typically absurd, yet somewhat realistic, joke of a plotline from asimov. it's up to calvin to use logical deduction from the robot axioms to figure it all out. again: there's not much else to this.
- now you see it (VI):
- no connection (VII): when somebody suggests to me that the bears will inherit the earth, i might imagine something else, altogether. bears are strangely bipedal, though, aren't they? relative to now largely discarded theories of grassland evolution, bears would have somewhat of a...leg up...on other mammals, in terms of developing intelligence, with the help of a little bit of radiation (although i think that's quite optimistic). just keep an eye on your picnic baskets, i guess. but, he's going over a familiar theme, here, which is turning the tables on humans, and, no doubt, specifically, on white ones. he likes that irony, it seems. i'm not sure i'm going along with him on the ant thing, though; that would seem to reflect the now superseded science of the time. we get a little of both with asimov - great foresight and period drudgery. hopefully, i'm of some use in separating it out. so, this is silly, but not altogether useless. i might suggest that the commie ruskie asimov is uncovering his own allegiances in claiming that america will one day be inhabited by bears and not eagles, though. eagles are also bipedal, after all.
i would presume that bear intelligence did, in fact, evolve in yellowstone park.
it is the bears that are smarter than the average ones that will survive and reproduce.
it actually appears to be ten years before the cartoon, though. so, hey.
picnic baskets, of course, provide for a high protein diet, as well.
i'm just applying the theory.
- red queen's race (VII): so, if you had time travel, would your primary concern be sending weapons to the greeks to fend off the arabs? the byzantines actually had a rather sophisticated level of technological development, something asimov seems to have missed - a level that the turks could not emulate and that european civilization did not transcend for centuries, afterwards. they had truly descartian robot animals, and would set them in motion in jungle scenes - no joke, look it up. robot lions, in byzantine greece. really. one of the ways that the emperor used to scare barbarians into submission was to levitate himself in a flying throne that we don't fully understand today, but is thought to have operated using a series of mechanical levers, the likes of which would not be known again until the industrial revolution, in britain. they certainly didn't have nuclear weapons, but i think that suggesting that the empire might have survived if they were granted to them is naive, at best. the greeks truly fell to christianity, and not to the barbarians around them; in a twisted display of religious depravity, they welcomed the end, as they longed for the return of christ. to the delusional byzantine christians, the end of the empire on earth meant the beginning of the kingdom of heaven; they might merely have bombed themselves to bring upon the rapture. so, asimov's philhellenism is blinding, here; greece destroyed itself in a fit of religiosity-induced madness and the greece asimov longs for the extension of was, in truth, very much long gone by the 15th century, collapsed from within. although we still don't know what the greek fire was, do we?
the byzantines did not have a scientifically open society, but one where science was kept as a state secret, to be protected from the barbarians. that is the reason that we have documentation of things we don't understand - history records the results of the advancements in byzantine science, but we have no records of the science, itself.
it's not an exaggeration to compare 13th century byzantium to nineteenth century england.
but, it's a shame that we can only do so by looking at results, and not at theories that were hidden from the outside, and that crumbled with the theodosian walls.
- mother earth (V): galactic space nazis, huh? there's an interesting projection of how a nazi victory may have worked itself out over time presuming a peace treaty with the united states (and the relationship of america to europe is inverted), but this is really just empty plot. it's maybe the first really identifiable piece here, though.
- and now you don't (VI):
- the evitable conflict (I): this is a little heavier, finally. written in 1950, it has strong shades of being a reaction to 1984, but asimov is imagining a future where the machine (a euphemism for a centrally planned economy that is of course run by robots) is in control of a globally interconnected economy where the contradictions of capital have withered away, thereby rendering competition irrelevant, rather than one where authoritarian governments are in control of a globe ravaged by perpetual war. so, this future is one of peace due to the robot-planned economies, and not one of competition and war. as in the orwellian universe, and apparently in reaction to it, the world is split into regions, but asimov splits them mildly different - oceania has absorbed eurasia (called the northern regions), leaving eastasia and the disputed region in separate global souths and what he calls europe (the geographical space inhabited by the roman empire at it's maximum extent, including the currently muslim regions), as a proxy of the north. operating between these regions is an anti-robot society for humanity that sounds sort of like free masonry, if i wanted to attach it to something in real life. and, the capital of the world government is new york city - perhaps in the old united nations building. he then briefly explores the four different regions via their representatives, attempting to project a concept of what they may be like, in relation to their views of the machine. so, the east is highly productive (and obsessed with yeast as a food product) and reliant on the machine, the south is corrupt and inept and reliant on others to use the machine for them, europe is inward and quietly superior and willing to defer to the north regarding the machine and the north (an anglosphere + ussr superstate) is in charge, but is skeptical about the ability of the machine to run the economy on it's own. he also seems to suggest that canada is running this northern superstate, which should probably be interpreted as comedic.
if asimov's intent is to provide for an alternative path that marxism may follow, this is curious, as asimov is not generally seen as a leftist [along with russell, he's a sort of archetype of early to mid century humanistic, science-first anglo liberalism]. i mean, he explicitly states that this is a future "post smith and post marx", but then he brings in an automated, centrally-planned economy, and that just means marxist, to a marxist - the left sees that conflict as artificial, so if you end up with something that walks like communism and quacks like communism then it's just plain old communism. the idea of technology absolving the contradictions (which is what he says, almost verbatim) isn't some kind of esoteric dialectic, it's the central point in marxist historical materialism. so, i mean he presented it in a way to avoid the house committee on unamerican activities, but you can only really interpret it a single way - it's a projection of a communist future, with robots in charge of a centrally planned economy. and, his future is one of peace, and not one of war. but, the quasi-masonic society for humanity, full of rich and powerful industrialists and financiers, wants to undo it and, presumably, bring back a market economy.
so, what asimov is setting up is a world where you have some kind of elitist masonic capitalist resistance to a robot-controlled technocratic marxist society, where there is world government and total peace. and, that's almost a prediction of atlas shrugged, although asimov is on the side of the robots, as always.
calvin then appears and seems to finally represent her namesake, in explicitly articulating a modified historical materialism, where the masons have no chance of success, because the robo-marxists will constantly adjust. the politician, byerley, finds that to be ghastly; the robopsychologist, calvin, thinks it's salvation.
these are the kinds of stories by asimov that i like, but all he does here is set up a story, without telling it. in terms of a reaction to orwell, the text is too short to allow for a decision as to whether it is more predictive or not.
god could very well be the most hysterical, flaky goof you've ever met, and there doesn't need to be any discernible reason why she does what she does at all.
i mean, i know that's not the hebrew god.
but, if we're to accept a first principle of a god (you know i'm not going with you on that, but suppose i did), there's no really good reason to assign any specific qualities to that god, as axioms, at all. you'd really have to try to determine the nature of that god by looking at it's actions. and, i think there's a pretty strong argument, based on the observation of empirical evidence, that any potential god out there isn't rational and isn't just and isn't even really very wise, either.
the empirical evidence would seem to suggest that if a god exists then she's kind of a stuck up, airheaded bitch.
so, where do you get in trying to work out the logical justifications for evolution in a creationist sense, if the idea of god being rational is empirically daft?
it's circular logic - if you assume god exists and is rational, then you can deduce virtually anything you want from it, given that there is some concept of logic in everything in nature.
but, that doesn't make the discourse valuable, it makes it useless - it's untestable. it's just mental masturbation.
but, like i say, that's not what asimov is doing; he's just starting with the perceived absurdity of divine creation juxtaposed with anthropomorphic self-destruction, and presenting the contradiction as comedic. and, i'm not going with him on that, because i really don't see the absurdity in it, because i don't accept the assumptions underlying his concept of god.
---
listen, you know i'm a complete atheist. i have as little patience for religion as anybody else that has ever lived.
but, i think the greek concept of multiple gods fighting for control is a much better reflection of reality than the hebrew concept of this omnipotent entity that is pure logic and wants to get in your head and own you. while both religions are obviously ridiculous, it is the greek religion that has a stronger empirical basis and that i'm far more likely to take seriously.
so, no, i don't think it's obvious that a god ought to be rational, and i don't think it's axiomatic that there ought to only be one of them, if there are to be any at all. and, when i break from these axioms, i really change the discourse.
but, i think you have the burden of proof to tell me why i should take monotheism more seriously than polytheism, or why your conception of god as rational is more believable than some other conception of god as irrational, or arbitrarily driven by emotion. we don't have a centralized theological bureaucracy that enforces this kind of bullshit at the end of a sword, anymore. you have to make your argument if you want to be taken seriously, as none of it is at all obvious.
and, i think this is healthy, because if we're to return to some form of religion, we should be questioning whether the jewish or greek systems are actually really preferable. the bottom line is that we may actually succeed in getting people to behave more ethically if we adopt greek religious ideas in place of jewish ones, as they conform more closely to empirical reality.
regardless, you have to make your case - i won't accept your axioms. they're just simply not obvious.
- green patches (V): so, would you save the earth from the introduction of an alien bacteria, if you could? there are some - i am not one of them - that think we came from alien bacteria in the first place. do we have a right to interfere in the competition? i'm going to provide a different response - the earth isn't much worth saving. good riddance to it. let the bacteria come, and clean us out.
- satisfaction guaranteed (I): you could pull the plot of this out almost immediately, so reading through it is a question of allowing asimov to go through the motions. what comes out is an exploration of the shallowness of 50s culture, as well as the social darwinism hardcoded into it, and it is indeed easy enough to imagine a lonely 50s housewife falling in love with a suave, housecleaning robot, even if a lot of the social codes and rules are so arcane nowadays, so lost in the mists of time, that the context of much of the story is really likely to be lost on a modern reader. i think i can reconstruct a little context, though; the 50s were both the period of wife-training to fit these socially darwinistic ideals and the period where there was actual mainstream discourse on the plausibility of replacing women with robots - and the idea was always about doing away with them as obsolete. so, what asimov is doing here is inserting a little bit of an ironic twist, in having the robot replacement end up fucking the wife, which reverses the source of inadequacy. but, this is all a little obscure, 70 years later...
- hostess (V): another hidden murder-mystery thing with no real point. i'm going to save it, though, because it's relatively well written.
- breeds there a man (V): boring mystery text that asimov uses to work through some (i think tired) debates about the theory of historical materialism (and some competing theories of it). i didn't initially spent much time on what struck me as the lunatic ravings of a character that was purposefully presented as being of unsound mind, and i don't think asimov really intended for the ideas presented by ralson to be taken seriously. the views of the historian seem to be sound enough, and asimov actually does a relatively good job of explaining why through the course of the text, even if he amuses ralson's delusions in carrying through with the plot. the psychologist seems to dismantle him rather thoroughly, as well. i've read some toynbee, and i don't think asimov is intending to express an admiring opinion of him, so much as he's intending to mock him - and i think that's the right way to approach him, too. some people seem to have differing views on the topic, but i think asimov is just building the guy up to tear him down, and eventually put him out of his misery. in another insightful bit of foresight, asimov may be predicting the tendency of the internet to tell losers to kill themselves. don't underestimate asimov's tendency to implement absurdity to carry through with sardonic ridicule.
- psychohistorians (VI):
- in a good cause (V): in some ways similar to the previous text, this seems to be more empty plot utilized as a mechanism to discuss some tendencies in history that are interesting to asimov.
- c-chute (V): pointless plot. set in arcturian universe, though.
- shah guidio g (V): asimov starts with a good idea with this - a projection of the united nations as evolving into a global feudal ruling class that should not be smeared as birchian as it is before it and, as an application of the class replacement component of historical materialism, is the literal opposite of it, hayekian language aside - and then gets so excited that he can't decide which mechanism to use. his atlantis (name taken from plato) is a cross between jonathan swift's laputa and the flying fortresses of sanskrit mythology, but seems to feature a circus rather similar to the hippodrome of constantinople. it's all built up on top of itself in a sort of clumsy mess, suggesting asimov got so excited by his idea that he couldn't form it well. and, then it ends with little point, beside the assertion of another punchline. but, what he's fundamentally exploring here is historical materialism - he has one class of people replace another as dominant, when the dominant class tries to enforce a division of labour. further, he explains that this is a historical process, by referring to various examples of it happening in the past.
- the fun they had (I): this isn't a story, it's just meant to get the idea across that we always interpret things that are different as unbelievable. while actual robot teachers are less likely than ai systems, we're learning in the pandemic that we're not that far from this. and, i'd certainly support learning systems based on the strengths and needs of the individual, rather than the existing broken model of socialized group learning.
- youth (VII): this turns the table on the idea of humans keeping insects (or perhaps small rodents) as pets. trade mission humans land on a planet inhabited by giant stereotypical octopus-like space creatures and are found by some children of that species, who capture them and hold them as pets, in cages. the story devolves into one of asimov's mystery texts, as the adults try to figure out what happened to the mission they expected, but it's one of those table-turning stories that asimov is relatively good at writing.
- the martian way (VII): this is a story about a martian colony that gets it's water supply cut off by a parody of hitler, who decides martians are "water wasters" (rather than useless eaters). in the end, the martian colony finds a stable source of water on saturn and offers to sell it back to earth. it does a relatively good job of lampooning the focus on saving this planet types as unscientific fascists that can't do basic math, but it's otherwise just a story
- the deep (VII): so, imagine that cicadas are actually super-intelligent and are trying to emerge from the earth and co-exist with humans by scouting us out using the method of inhabiting one of our minds. their hive mind would have difficulty interfacing with human individuality, and would ultimately have to view us with disdain, as inferior. sound familiar? i'm an advocate of human individualism, and am exceedingly weary of any sort of collectivism as a backdoor for fascism, which is a connection that asimov tends to consistently miss, but i do concede that a hive mind would view me with as much contempt as i'd view it, and have little pushback if the intent is strictly to establish a concept of relativism, even if i'd argue that any sort of collectivist intelligence of this manner could not coexist with humans, and would need to be annihilated as an otherwise irresolvable threat to our very existence as a species (which is the actual correct lesson of the second world war). so, if asimov is arguing that collectivism and individualism cannot co-exist, i would argue that he's correct. as an american progressive of a certain era, it is not surprising to see asimov toy with fascistic concepts of this sort that the contemporary left thoroughly denounces as inconsistent with individual freedom, but there isn't a lot to push back against, if the point is merely to establish the relativism.
- button, button: this was supposedly an attempt by asimov at explicit humour, as though his texts weren't all full of dry wit and bad puns. while i actually think that many of his other texts are more humourous, asimov's clarification that he's going for humour here is really an admission that the text has no point.
- sally (VII): you could either interpret this as a depiction of a future robot revolt or as a commentary on then-contemporary race politics in 1950s america. in the end, the bad guy gets run down by a pack of cars acting somewhat like a pack of killer whales. these robots engage with primitive human concepts like friendship and revenge; this is sort of an outlier, in terms of how asimov tends to deal with what robots are. it's not bad as a story, though. derivatives include christine by stephen king.
- kid stuff (VII): he may be referring more to the academization of folk lore more than anything else. i remember a few years ago when some syrian migrants moved in next door to me that seemed to legitimately think i was a genie, as that's the only way they could understand a transgendered person. to them, genies were real things. to the germans and celts of a far less distant history than would be generally realized, elves and fairies and skraelings were not the imaginary things of children's stories, but real beings that affected people's lives. the gods of the greco-roman world were not literary devices, but entities with free will that would help or hinder the existence of humans. this all passed into the realm of myth, and consequently became juvenilized in an act of christian imperialism, before being reclaimed by academic historians trying to understand the mindsets of their ancestors. and, so these were never intended to be stories for children. that said, the main point asimov may be making may be a characteristically sardonic smear of the fantasy genre and it's overlap into science fiction, which is just another reason to assert the point that asimov is not and was not l ron hubbard.
belief - winds of change
- the micropsychiatric applications of thiotimoline
- the caves of steel (II): so, as i was offline for a bit, i decided to get the first asimov reading done. i had to stop to sleep a few times, but it only really took a few hours - which is less time than these short story collections. so, it should actually pick up, i think. two per week/minimum until i catch up...i could potentially do 3-4 of these in a 24 hour period if i'm alert and awake enough. so, i could do the entire foundation series in a weekend. and, that was what i intended to do with this, right? i could even still do the naked sun this weekend.
what do i think of the caves of steel?
on the surface, this is yet another sherlock holmes style detective story merely set in a universe with robots, and that features a robot in the role of our dear watson. i sleuthed that out with little effort; it was elementary. clearly. no shit; really. but, this isn't of a lot of interest to me, or to history. it's really the background universe that's of some interest, and the ideas he's setting off against each other in the whodunnit, rather than the whodunnit it, itself. i'm consequently not going to concern myself much with plot. so, what is this really about?
as asimov has passed into the realm of classics departments (something i've pointed out before), his texts have picked up a lot of religious hubris, a lot of it in an apparent misreading of his work that is intended to interpret him through the filter of his much less talented and very shady contemporary, l. ron hubbard. somehow, the openly atheist asimov has become recast as a secret religionist, or even a sympathizer of radical islam. as i am going to be reclaiming asimov for the atheist left as i do this, let's get the point clear, before we start - this is a direct quote from asimov, from 1982, when he was acting president of the american humanist society:
I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
that's pretty unambiguous, i'd say.
now, that doesn't mean that asimov won't explore religious ideas, usually in an attempt to discredit them, and he clearly does very frequently do so. asimov was very much in the now lost tradition of intellectual liberalism (stemming from the likes of mill) that argued that it is better to expose one's opponents than ignore them. so, just because asimov talks about religion, or gives religion a voice in his texts, doesn't mean he's secretly aligned with it, given that all evidence suggests the opposite, and in a fairly aggressive way. it would seem odd that the classics departments seem so eager to misunderstand him, apparently on purpose.
so, there are some religious references here, but the book is not about religion, and none of the organizations are really intended to represent any sort of religious body, nor does asimov really defend or attack religion in any substantive manner. the religious references are mild cultural throwaways with little real depth or meaning at all.
so, if the text is not about religion, what is it about? the answer is that the text is about communism. i told you from the start that i was going to implement a marxist reading of asimov, which i think is the most accurate one in terms of his intent. so, here we go...
let's just get the setting down, first.
so, we're many eons into the future, and the earth is being recolonized by humans that had previously colonized places outside of the solar system, many centuries after the earth had abandoned further colonizing outer space. as the humans that left the earth did not have anarchy in reproduction, they are physically and mentally more robust and have far more advanced developments in technology (including far more advanced robots); however, they have also lost the vigour created by the randomness of natural selection, and are more prone to disease. for that reason, the earth is walled off from the colony by a force field and contact between the native humans and the returning colonists is strictly minimal. on the earth, humans have mostly retreated indoors (into caves of steel) by moving into giant hive-like cities that have no contact with natural phenomena like wind, rain or sun. the people in these cities live in a techno-communist dystopia with strong orwellian undertones, and this may be one of the earliest actual articulations of such a thing. a secret society of medievalists opposes this, is concerned about the job-killing effects of mechanization and wants to go "back to the soil". through the course of the text, it is explained that the colonists have returned to earth to convince the earth to return to active colonization, as it is perceived that overpopulation on the earth may lead to it becoming a threat to other planets. the story ends with the colonists deciding on a plan to co-opt the medievalist movement, and convert it into a pro-colonization movement, from the inside.
this was published in 1953, which was just after 1984 (a clear influence on the youngish asimov) and in the scariest parts of the cold war, coming out of world war two.
i think it's easy enough to naively misinterpret this as being about conservative religious groups fighting against technology, but it's less clear to me how anybody could think asimov was taking the side of the conservative, primitivist medievalists, if for no other reason than that the story is clearly written from the opposing perspective. you shouldn't need to know anything about asimov to realize it's a critique of primitvism, rather than an articulation of support for it. but, even that reading is, i think, missing the real point - what asimov is really setting up here is not a conflict between pro and anti technological forces, but rather a conflict between the unorganized utopian socialism of actual workers and the vanguard force of what marx called scientific socialism, in the bureaucracy of government. and, if we are to adopt the sherlock holmes approach in addressing this, the clues are pretty heavy-handed. no shit. really...
asimov tends to correct marx, a little, on the topic. marx is insistent that workers will take control of the means of production, and place robots under their command; asimov, with the hindsight of the luddite movement, and the general development of the democratic party (including the progressive movement) in the post-reconstruction years, seems to realize that the fourierism of utopian socialism is a better reflection of worker psychology. the most recent manifestation of this is the reaction to globalization, where remnants of the left found themselves in a struggle against workers, to try to prevent them from retreating inwards, but this fundamental mistake by marx is empirically demonstrable so long as we've had any sort of machines. we don't tend to want to take control of the machines, as we should; we want to destroy them, instead. asimov's insight into human behaviour is pretty valuable, here - whether it's innate or taught, we're a pretty conservative species, socially, and we tend to collapse into the most reactionary tendencies with little prodding. asimov clearly doesn't enjoy this, but he realizes the truth of it. so, asimov doesn't imagine that the future is run by a corrupt worker's committee that went fascist at the first hint of power, so much as he imagines that the workers of the distant future are still the same old utopian socialists from the 1840s, or the 1930s, and a communist vanguard has developed out of capital to run society, instead.
remember: the idea of capitalism competing with socialism is a bourgeois strawman that is incoherent in a marxist framework, as socialism arises from capitalism in an evolutionary process, and does not abolish it in a competitive process. to a marxist, capital ought to be on the side of socialism. but, the anti-technology conservatism of primitivism and ludditism is a serious, reactionary force to be reckoned with. so, the real opponents of communism become the proletariat, itself - unless they can be co-opted to realize their irrational and reactionary tendencies.
so, his vision of new york (one of the caves of steel) is a techno-communist dystopia that seems to essentially be a parody of the kibbutz system, but it's entirely top down, and retains all kinds of remnants of hierarchy, with irony, but not dripping with it. asimov subtlety critiques this, but he seems to feel it's inevitable, and doesn't really get excited about it. the kinds of restrictions on every day life that might be viciously criticized by the anarchist orwell or by a more liberal critique of socialism are written of passively, and even approvingly, by asimov; to asimov, it is merely efficiency at work, and there's little use in irrationally resisting it. and, to some extent, he's right, even if we don't know the real limits of production on this planet, as of yet.
there are indeed discussions of malthus that seem to underlie the vision that i'll leave out of this analysis. that is ultimately what he's getting at: overpopulation. while we keep putting this off, we're in the midst of an energy crisis that we've been dealing with since the 70s (and asimov very astutely talks about running out of uranium in a distant nuclear-powered future, after we've run out of coal, which is why it's not an answer to the problems we have today) and a lot of the problems he's talking about are actually startlingly current. i've recently started eating nutritional yeast as a meat replacement (albeit mostly for health reasons), and i've written repeatedly about the need to move to hydroponics, as the soil rapidly depletes in value.
so, does that mean i'm on the side of the vanguard and opposed to the medievalists? while asimov clearly comes down on the side of embracing robots via his character of baley, which is not surprising, he doesn't clearly take a side, here. but, let's recall what he's placing in opposition to one another: this is a conflict between utopian and scientific socialism, and really about infighting on the left. it's really not any sort of broad ideological discourse that requires taking a firm position on. in the end, he presents a dialectic to resolve the conflict, by constructing an algorithm to let the vanguard work through the utopian movements via co-option. and, if it was that easy, right?
but, my answer is not really. asimov was a liberal (i keep saying that.) of the old-timey variety, which meant he was a communist in slow motion, or a communist in theory but with reservations in practice. his brand of liberalism wanted communism in the end, but didn't see a way to get there. so, he's really writing about tactics, via a narrative about robots.
i'm an anarchist, and i'm coming down on this in a very different way - while i share marx' critique of fourierism, which would have been very similar to his never written critique of progressivism, i am exceedingly distrustful of vanguards. so, i'd have to argue that his technocracy, as dystopian as it is, really isn't all that realistic; if you allow for a dictatorship of resources, you're going to end up with decadence and corruption of the worst sort, you're not going to get this ordered meritocracy that he's projecting. further, i thoroughly reject marx' strawmen arguments against proudhon and bakunin, as utopians; i think it's marx that harboured the stronger sympathies for religion, and even because he understood it as a tool of oppression, and that it is marx that comes off as more utopian. so, i'm going to fall somewhere in between here, and i'm going to suggest that asimov's dialectical solution is more than a little naive, even as i point out that it might also be trite - it might be somewhat of a sarcastic joke. there has to be a better way to place the technology into common ownership that allows for distributive justice and real democracy, which is what the left should be and is supposed to be about.
but, that's what this is - it's an allegory of the conflict between utopian and scientific socialism, and one that leaves an anarchist a little on the sidelines.
i actually kind of want to do the second part of this right away, so i'm going to just get to it and could potentially be done by mid-afternoon.
- sucker bait (V): this is a too-long story about a planet with beryllium dust that is a danger to humans that lacks a level of believability, in the end - humans would be expected to be comprehensive in checking for elements on a planet's surface, one would have to assume. there's ultimately too much character development and too many descriptive sections that simply drag a story out for 70+ pages that lacks any meaningful actual point.
- the immortal bard (VII): an amusing, but pointless, attack on annoying, pretentious english majors.
- its such a beautiful day (I): he's making a valid, excellent point about the alienation between humanity and nature brought on by the imposition of virtual reality. i would rather go outside sometimes, too. there's nothing wrong with the kid - there's something wrong with the society.
- the singing bell: asimov's mysteries
- question:
- risk (I): more empty plot. throwaway.
- franchise (I): well, does your vote count? do you have a responsibility to vote? will it come down to you? asimov frequently writes these sardonic explorations of frequently stated turns of phrase, whether thought through or not. but, i think his older character gets the right idea: you can't determine voting patterns strictly via demographics, there's a level of uncertainty - indeed a level of irrationality - inherent to democracy that cannot and should not be disturbed.
the talking stone - asimov's mysteries
the portable star
dreamworld
- dreaming is a private thing (VII): the government has no place in the virtual reality helmets of the nation. but, this is an interesting projection of what might be coming.
- the dead past (VII): this is mostly a parody of the division of labour in academia, using a parable of exploring specific questions of carthaginian identity through the filter of a device that allows researchers to peer backwards into time by retrieving data embedded into tachyon neutrinos, which it turns out have a limited ability to reconstruct the past. the science is a bit far-fetched (you would have to find neutrinos present in the moment being searched for, which are probably mostly out in outer space), but the parody of a division of labour is interesting.
- living space (V): he seems to be playing with a naive articulation of the many world interpretation of quantum physics, one that allows humans to move back and forth between different possible universes by means of converting into a probability pattern. it's not really well-formed, but i get the point. unfortunately, no physicist would actually go with this - the many worlds are not even theoretically real but just mathematically necessary on paper, and nobody really talks about physical manifestations of these parallel realities. it's a kind of mathematical identity in the form of a broad summation that i'd generally argue is, itself, not that well defined. the lebensraum twist is comical but he's right - if we can one day hop between parallel realities, then all possible universes can, as well. so, is an infinite number of realities seeking space in an infinite number of worlds really an answer to the malthusian problem, then? technically, it actually shouldn't be, in the long run, but you need to do some transfinite arithmetic to actually work that out. and, asimov gets there eventually, using more of a naive argument about aliens.
what's in a name - asimov's mysteries
- the dying night (VII): one of asimov's recurrent mysteries that happens to feature the concept of mass transference (the transporters from star trek) set in a reality with space travel.
- someday (I): what i find interesting about this is the idea that we might one day have handheld computing devices that talk to us, leading to a decline in literacy rates amongst the younger generation, who are desperate to get around the parental locks on the devices. this was written in 1956. this robot is unusual in an asimovian sense, in that it seems to be able to understand human speech beyond it's programming, a common idea in science fiction, but one which is impossible, and which asimov would, usually, be the first to (refreshingly) write off as nonsense. you don't expect that kind of silliness from asimov. but, asimov uses that unusual ability to allow for the robot to recognize that it's not being respected, and you can again choose to interpret that as futuristic or contemporaneous, in whatever way you'd prefer. someday, indeed.
- each an explorer (V): interesting premise, but not much of a point. it's an idea that he also explored in green patches.
pate de foie grras - asimov's mysteries
- the watery place (VII): the canals were on mars, not on venus. again, asimov seems to be extrapolating sardonically on the question of what might happen if a ufo were to land in small-town usa, perhaps with shades of hg wells. is he making a valid point? he might be. it's almost like a coen brothers film, in a sense. but, you'd think the aliens would know better, even if the modelling of human behaviour is relatively apt.
- jokester (I): see, i think it's best to interpret this as a joke itself, although i like the idea of a supercomputer pleading with a bad comic to stop. i tell a lot of jokes myself, and they tend to be intended to numb the pain of existence, or otherwise neutralize the absurdity of it. it's ultimately, biologically, a stress-relieving response. so, i don't think we need to seek religious solutions, when an evolutionary one is so apparent; that seems rather backwards, especially coming from asimov. that said, i would also reject the idea that only humans use amusement as a stress response. i've met some dogs that have great senses of humour, and that seem to be able to laugh as well as they can cry.
- the naked sun (II): i decided to just get right to the second part of the robot series. the third part was written 25 years later, and i'll approach it separately, with a fourth part. i'll no doubt split the foundation series in two as well, despite my previous comments.
unfortunately, i can't write out a detailed analysis of this text, because it doesn't justify one (edit: or, at least, i didn't initially think that it justified one. i have since expanded this review to further discuss it's treatment of marx' theory of alienation, which appears to be the point of the text). we are once again thrust into a sherlock holmes mystery, with baley playing the role of sherlock and daneel playing the role of watson (and you'll have to ask somebody else to explore the judaic significance of a story with characters that have the names of elijah, daniel and jezebel - i'm not interested), but there is no underlying allegory. it's really just plot.
that said, it happens to be that the setting is coincidentally worth discussing a little bit strictly because it mirrors the social relations we find ourselves in during the covid pandemic. on the planet of solaria, which is where baley and daneel are sent to solve a crime in this episode, people live as isolated individuals in mansions dotted across the surface by hundreds or thousands of miles, with upwards of 50 robots designed to serve each individual in specific manners, in a perfect division of labour. if asimov is toying with the leftist critique of the division of labour yet again, or drawing comparisons to slave to slave owner ratios in early 19th century america, he doesn't run with it (there is what seems like a forced reference to the helots in sparta, that i suspect may have been forced as a distraction, given that the references to american slavery are heavy-handed and longstanding), nor does he play with the idea of alienation, as presented by marx, which is a theory that i'm critical of, in too deep a manner - even if it's arguably the actual purpose of the text, something that i've decided to discuss in further detail, in this space. asimov again seems to come down somewhere in the middle of this debate over the importance of physical human contact in the maintenance of normal human mental health, both exploring the positive aspects of a society rooted strictly in contact via virtual reality, and in which physical touching and sex are frowned upon as primitive and sort of disgusting behaviours, and noting some of the potential drawbacks in terms of quality of life and in terms of blowback in the form of antisocial behaviour. i suppose it's an objective exploration of the idea, in that sense. but, as mentioned, this is really strictly of interest because it's contemporary - it makes you wonder what the next pandemic might be like, 100 years from now.
why am i critical of marx' views on alienation? i should acknowledge that this is a subtle thing, but it comes down to a rejection of the marxist/hegelian concept of how humans define ourselves, in terms of purpose and self-worth. basically, i don't think we define our worth in terms of our labour, and i think that only a slave could ever argue that we do, or that we ought to. i'd argue that the alienation of the worker from their labour (and ultimately from society) is desirable, and that this is actually why we want communism - that placing labour in the hands of automation, or otherwise separating it from individual humans through a process of socializing it, is the best way to reclaim our humanity and purpose, as emancipated individuals that define ourselves in terms other than our labour-purpose. an emancipated, free person ought to define their purpose in terms of their artistic expression, or in terms of their leisure time, and not in terms of their labour, as defined as some kind of collectivist contribution to society; in many cases, a free person might choose to spend their time doing something that we might currently describe as labour, but they would do it as a form of recreation, and not in order to justify their self-worth. but, this is why i'm an anarchist and you're not - i reject the producerism, i reject the romanticization of labour and instead assert that labour is a necessary evil, something we have to do whether we like it or not, and something we should all thoroughly despise as unbefitting of a free human being. the value of robots - of automation, of mechanization - is supposed to be that it frees us of the necessity to perform this unwanted evil of labour. to an anarcho-communist, separating the worker from their labour is the whole point - it's not a process of being alienated from anything, but a process of being emancipated from the slavery of market relations.
let's get back to the text. if the purpose of the text is to explore alienation via this mechanism of a planet where people only interact via virtual reality, however weakly it is actually developed, then what is asimov really getting at with this? is it a marxist critique of capitalist social relations? am i as opposed to what asimov thought as i am to what marx thought? see, that all seems a little off, given that (1) solaria is a broadly communist society, where there is no longer any conflict over control of the means of production and competition does not exist and (2) what asimov seems to be criticizing, the separation of the human from their tribe (by which he means society), is not really what alienation means in a marxist framework (it refers to a worker being alienated from the product of it's labour, not individuals being alienated from society, or technology acting as a force of alienation, although the latter has been frequently applied as a tool in a discourse on marxist alienation). the actual reality is that what asimov is getting at is sort of blurry and not particularly well formed, but nonetheless is some kind of vague critique of the idea of a society where individuals have no connection to each other and is probably influenced by marx' writing on alienation, perhaps via a secondary source. he's not the first person to apply the idea of marxist alienation in a blurry or non-specific manner and he probably won't be the last, but it makes a review like this difficult. do i analyze what marx actually said about alienation, or do i analyze asimov's confused or naive take on it? or do i just point out that asimov is talking about alienation without really talking about marxist alienation and kind of leave it at that?
asimov actually seems to point to some upsides of the social relations he's describing (and, in the end, the main character decides he has to leave the earth because he can no longer live in the new york city kibbutz because it's stifling his individuality), but each of his characters seem to be introduced to develop specific reasons why such a social relation isn't particularly desirable. this is why it seems to be the point of the text: what we have is a detective arriving on this strange world and being sequentially introduced to different characters that all demonstrate a different reason why the defining social relation on the planet is not a good one (and i'll leave the formal essay to whatever high school student gets here first). the character of leebig, who commits suicide on the threat of human contact, even seems to be a parody of the archetypal introverted science nerd, taken to the extreme. that said, while asimov may be fairly clear in his critique of the alienation defining the social relations in the society he's describing, even if it's not a strictly marxist critique, and even if the society isn't very capitalist, he isn't always convincing in his critique, and i find that a lot of his intended arguments against what he seems to be deciding is alienation are actually fairly compelling arguments in favour of the value of escaping from the deadening aspects of a collectivist society that dulls the abilities of individual expression. while i do not think it's intentional on asimov's behalf, i actually frequently find myself relating more to the solarians than i do to baley.
so, there isn't a clear allegory in the text, and the application of marx' theory of alienation isn't always well informed, but it is nonetheless clear that asimov was trying to write a novel that critiques the idea of alienation, and was influenced by marx in what he was doing. maybe i'm missing the point - maybe there's some irony in what he's doing, in twisting the situation around, and introducing alienation into an advanced techno-communist dystopia. maybe he's redefining the concept of alienation as it may exist in an actual dystopian future, and maybe he's even suggesting that alienation (as he's defining it) is actually an inescapable consequence of marx' theories, meaning maybe he's more on my side than i think. but, i think the balance of evidence is that he's working with an idea that's come to him second hand, or that he didn't fully understand, and that, as a result, it's hard to sort it out all these years later.
one may note that the character of gloria (who exists to show a specific perceived downside of the end of physical human social contact) is exactly the sort of character that asimov was frequently criticized for not writing into his novels. it's just more evidence that his feminist admirers are more grounded in reality than his feminist detractors.
there is also a weak tie-in to the previous text's plot about utopian socialist medievalists, in that asimov does explicitly present solaria as an exaggeration of the wastefulness of contemporary earth. so, that's the ironic plot twist - the earthling of the future experiencing self-realization at seeing his own history in the mirror. but, this is really only done in passing and comes off as comical more than it does as profound. there are also further explorations of the culture of the outer worlds - the vanguard - which are further explorations of the kibbutz theme, also drawing heavily from plato. there are further references to malthus and a further exploration of the potential positive uses of eugenics. so, asimov does explore the basic premise of the first novel a little bit more, but he doesn't really expand upon anything substantive, by doing so. the text ends with asimov revisiting the ending of the first volume, in deciding that humans must return to colonizing space to prevent the earth from surpassing it's carrying capacity.
this somewhat difficult sidestepping of the discussion of marxist alienation aside, the text is really otherwise fairly unexciting, unless you're actually into the whodunnit thing, in which case it should be noted that it's one of asimov's longer texts in that style, for better or worse.
i had to sleep this afternoon, but i want to get through the last short stories collection (the bicentennial man) this weekend as well, and then get to the actual journal entries (five and counting...) over the next week. remember: i'm over two years behind on this. i really need to pick it up, and if the broken computer gives me an excuse for a few weeks, so be it.
- strike breaker (V): this is another of asimov's many texts exploring social ostracism using the mechanism of space exploration and a reminder that systemic discrimination need not necessarily be left behind here, as we leave this planet behind.
dust of death - asimov's mysteries
- let's get together (VII): the idea that the soviets might be able to send "total conversion" bombs (a type of suicide bomber capable of detonating a nuclear device) to the united states in the guise of androids indistinguishable from humans, because they are far more advanced than us, is peculiarly absurd - but that's just the point. this is a story about the paranoia that set in during the cold war, and is actually exceedingly insightful in it's projection of that conflict collapsing into mass paranoia, reduced to symbolic movements in a game theoretic stalemate, down to the climax of absurdity that set in with reagan, when the soviets found themselves unable to react to the irrational actions of a clear madman, driven by the complete absence of any sort of predictability or logic. conservatives are right when they point out that the sharp increase in military spending under reagan ended the cold war, but not for the reasons they suggest. the truth is that the soviets were convinced that reagan was on the brink of ending it all in a fit of paranoia and dementia and stepped back because they found his unpredictability to be a threat to the existence of humanity, itself. if asimov was able to see this so clearly in 1957...
- profession (V): this is a curious story about the futility of being intelligent within the emptiness of technocratic capitalism. it's fundamentally a critique of the corporatization of the education system, and rooted in asimov recognizing an often unstated truth: the university is as much of a refuge for those that can't survive in the market as it as a hierarchical structure for the intellectual elite.
a loint of paw - asimov's mysteries
ideas die hard - winds of change
- galley slave (I): this is a short whodunnit in a sherlock holmes style, which is how calvin is frequently deployed. asimov just barely touches on the opposition to robots, in setting up a disgruntled sociology prof that's willing to suicide bomb his own career in order to take the robots out of service. again, i'd like this to be more profound than it actually is.
- the gentle vultures (VII): asimov is doing one of the things he's known for, which is to take a historical entity (the hurrians, which i believe were the sister-race to the sumerians, and which lived in the caucasus region, north of the fertile crescent. they frequently came into conflict with the various semitic groups that replaced the sumerians, who frequently warred amongst each other) and project it forwards into time, making it a character in a space alien story. this becomes a science fiction trope, in time. romans become romulans, mongols become klingons, etc. this is not to mention asimov's roman-influenced galactic empire, itself. besides retelling the story of hurrian supremacy over the semitic tribes via the space alien mechanism, the story itself isn't much.
- lenny (I): so, lenny is an autistic robot, due to something malfunctioning in manufacturing. asimov tersely explores some social relations around that. the corporation wants to do away with it, but calvin wants to study it because she wants to teach it how to learn, something robots couldn't do in asimov's universe to that point. so, lenny is a robot free of instinct that needs to be taught what it knows, like mammals. asimov is kind of grappling with a concept of artificial intelligence, and this actually becomes the main plotline moving forwards, although it was actually written last (and may have even been written to introduce that ai narrative, as there is really nothing else to this).
- the feeling of power (I): multiplication by hand as a mysterious, magical power; it's like something from a monty python skit. this idea of technology making us stupid, of it thrusting us into a new dark age, is a frequent theme in asimov, though, and one that many others have picked up on, recently. so, comical plotline aside, there's maybe something profound, here. can your average adult multiply large numbers by hand, nowadays? something else to note is that we have to guess how the greeks (not to mention the babylonians) did mathematics with a primitive or awkward (base-60 in the case of the babylonians) numeral system (and without 0), and our discourses on the topic would no doubt seem as silly to an ancient athenian or babylonian as this story does to us.
- all the troubles of the world (I): asimov seems to want to misunderstand the concept of probability on purpose, here. no machine could ever decide where or if a crime is going to occur, there would necessarily be uncertainty and it would necessarily be wrong relatively frequently. acting on all false alarms would both create civil rights issues and be uneconomical. i mean, it's a swell enough idea to imagine a computer that can predict crime, but it's utterly nonsensical and utterly unrealistic. nor do we know why multivac wants to die, in the end.
- the ugly little boy (VII): this is a fairly forward thinking analysis of neanderthal humanity, given that it was written in the 1950s, when neanderthals were thought to have been barbaric cavemen. there was a competing hypothesis that neanderthals may have specifically been the unique ancestors of white europeans, which we today know is wrong; today, we know (from dna) that humans interbred with neanderthals and that they were probably a sister species, homo sapiens neanderthalensis. the introduction of a concept of pathos here would have been rather remarkable for it's time. it is, however, fundamentally a human interest story, rather than a sci-fi story. i suppose that it would probably be the inspiration underlying the film encino man.
anniversary - asimov's mysteries
obituary - asimov's mysteries
star light - asimov's mysteries
- eyes do more than see (VII): eyes and ears are of course mechanical objects that can be represented in software, so we don't have to lose their functionality in the process of digitization. but, he makes a good point that we shouldn't forget their importance, in terms of actually enjoying existence. faced with the realization of my mortality, i see no delusion in pretending that a senseless existence is not preferable to the lack of one altogether, but i cannot pretend to understand how i might analyze such a thing billions of years into it.
- founding father (V): earth's early atmosphere is thought to have been full of ammonia, and that's no doubt where he's going with this story about humans crashing on the planet of an oxygenless atmosphere and being unable to remove the ammonia, yet succeeding in the process at the point of death.
the man who made the 21st century
the key - asimov's mysteries
the billiard ball - asimov's mysteries
- segregationist (VII): likewise, this is ultimately about self-acceptance, and has a very different undertone in that respect than most of asimov's work, and it's not clear that he's being critical of that different undertone, although the context of replacing a defective heart is also rather different than the context of accepting some idiosyncratic part of your individuality, so that is sort of a false comparison. you could interpret it as being a discourse surrounding the not-yet-existing transhumanist movement; he's certainly reaching for it, at least, in imagining a future where a senator has to choose between a bio-identical plastic heart and a mechanically functioning, metallic robot heart that would put him on the path towards transitioning from human to robot. but, as before, it may be more accurate to look at it from a then contemporary perspective (which, in this case, means 1967), and frame the discourse around racial mixing, instead. asimov presents both sides of the debate, so you can weigh the arguments he makes and decide for yourself. personally, i'll opt for betterment over stasis - although i'd suggest that, based on the arguments in the text, the plastic heart is the better option. in this hypothetical future of organ modularity, the ideal is frequent tune-ups, rather than permanent replacement.
- key item (I): it seems that, later on, and to my surprise. asimov wrote several silly stories about multivac taking on human characteristics, which mirrors his narrative about the humanization of robots. this story has no purpose at all, besides to demonstrate the strange human behaviour of being polite to a machine. and, i guess i should ask, because i'd never talk to a computer, myself - do you ask alexa poltely, and thank her when she gives you the answer?
- the holmes-ginsbrook device
- feminine intuition (I): this is a later piece that seems to be a sarcastic reply to some critiques of susan calvin as a character. i actually agree with asimov, via calvin - the entire critique is daft, and this is a fitting way to kill her off. however, when you read the text in the order presented in the complete robot, you also get a sequence of humanization in the robots, in the direction of time. that fact makes this story worth keeping in sequence, even if it's point is to let calvin smack some third-wavers on the knuckles with her cane.
- a problem of numbers
- the best new thing
- 2430 ad / the greatest asset (VII): these are two different takes on the idea of humans completely eliminating all biodiversity on the planet, to the point where we're the only non-domesticated lifeform. in some sense, this would have to be unavoidable, unless we reach some kind of natural cyclic carrying capacity (it would need to be the result of increased viral activity, which makes sense in the context of exploding population growth), but it nonetheless strikes me as incomprehensible. something would go wrong, or we wouldn't let it happen. but, it is nonetheless an interesting exercise in contemplating the inevitable consequences of the unsustainability of infinite growth, which we're going to have to get a grasp of, eventually.
- mirror image (II): this is a gap text in the robot series that plugs in between the naked sun and the robots of dawn and was, for a time, the last installment in that series. this is the first application of the robot laws in this text (despite the fact that the story was written in the 70s, after all of the classic robot stories), and they are applied like an axiomatic system to solve a logical problem, although it actually comes off more as a parody of sherlock holmes than anything else - which is all very typical of baley & daneel stories. there's not much depth to the story beyond that. i should, however, point out that there are actually a couple of examples of mathematicians making competing claims for the discovery of an idea, the most famous being the argument between leibniz and newton for the rightful discoverer of the calculus. another, however, is the argument between gauss and bolyai for the discovery of non-euclidean (or post-euclidean) geometry, and that might be the more direct inspiration on the story. there are countless lesser examples. we gloss over this in math class by arguing that the logic is out there in the ether and that if the ideas are in the zeitgeist then the proofs will follow naturally, something we can all demonstrate to each other by simply doing homework. but, in the case of non-euclidean geometry, it does in fact seem that gauss rather maliciously stole the idea from the young bolyai and nobody really called him on it for decades after the fact. i'm only speculating about the influence, but that's a story you can look up, if you'd like.
- light verse (I): this is a short piece from the 70s, and is just about the idea that a computational defect may be a benefit. you shouldn't be so quick to decide that something - or somebody, as it may be - needs a fixing. maybe they're just fine as they are.
the dream - ?
benjamin's dream - ?
party by satellite - ?
- ....that thou art mindful of him (I): this solves the problem that us robotics has long had about how to market robots to people. the solution is to create robots not in the imitation of women [as in the previous story] but in the imitation of animals, and to solve practical problems, like pest control. i have to admit that this sounds like a good idea, although i'm not sure that it leads to the replacement of carbon with silicon, in the end. asimov builds up the humanization of robots here a little further by replacing the robotics laws with humanics laws, setting up the last story:
benjamin's bicentennial blast - ?
half-baked publisher's delight - ?
heavenly host - ?
big game- ?
about nothing- winds of change
- the bicentennial man (I): this finally addresses the old problem of machines becoming human, and projects us robots many centuries into the future, using the mechanism of a robot that outlives several generations of the family it was sold into, and then wants to die with it, to prove it's really human. marvin minsky also seems to make a cameo, here, in the form of a robopsychologist that is proven wrong in the future. asimov goes over a lot of old themes here [mind-body problem, the liberation of robots as an allegory for the liberation of blacks, etc ] in what is an apparent thread-tying process, but he ultimately doesn't succeed in explaining what is driving this robot to act so irrationally. as humans, we may be expected to think this makes some kind of sense, due to some kind of emotional bias, but i can't really make sense of it, myself. i can understand why a robot might want to be free. i can't understand why it would want to be human, at all costs - including it's death. i think asimov was going for the jugular here and kind of fell over and kneed himself in the groin, instead - if this is his final projection of what becomes of robots in the future, it's unsatisfying, to say the least.
- the winnowing (VII): asimov talks a lot about population control, and i'm sure it's created some whispers, even if the smart kids could always work it out without needing much help. so, i think he sort of had to write this short, ironic tale of a scientist chosen to create a population control virus using it on the population controllers, instead. and, again, this is a curious read in the context of the covid-19 pandemic.
- old fashioned (VII): a space ship gets stuck in a black hole and sends an sos using morse code by tossing objects into the black hole. it's an interesting few pages, but it's not much of a story.
- marching in (VII): this is a sarcastic joke, but i like it, and it's true - music is the best therapy there is,
no, really, that's the joke - that gerald ford is a robot. no shitting. certainly, asimov may be reflecting a little on the nature of then contemporary american politics, post-watergate, in his perception of the stage-managed state of affairs. but, the joke is that gerald ford is a robot, and that's really all that this is actually about.
good taste - winds of change
to tell at a glance - winds of change
sure thing - winds of change
found - winds of change
fair exchange - winds of change
nothing for nothing - winds of change
how it happened - winds of change
it is coming - winds of change
the last answer - winds of change
for the birds - winds of change
getting even
death of a foy - winds of change
the last shuttle - winds of change
a perfect fit - winds of change
ignition point - winds of change
lest we remember -winds of change
winds of change - winds of change
one night of song - winds of change
azazel
the dim rumble
the super runner
the smile that loses
- the robots of dawn (III): ok, i got through the third volume (the robots of dawn), and i don't have much to add, nor do i think that the text was very worthwhile. i might even label broad swaths of it to be worthless pornography with no redeemable qualities that probably shouldn't have been published. so, do i even want to review this at all? i'm being comprehensive...
but, i'm not really excited about it, or have much of an urge to type about it. and, i don't want this to turn into a chore.
i think the key point is really realizing the 25 year difference. whereas the asimov that i knew and i respected was writing for a contemporary audience in the 40s and 50s, there were dramatic social changes that occurred in the 60s and 70s, and asimov would seem to be required to adjust to them for this book published in the 80s, if not voluntarily than no doubt by his publisher. so, that 25 year time lag is a sort of a clean break, conceptually. they're the same characters to start, but this novel is really twice as long as it needs to be because it needs to house certain types of additional characters, which people are expected to be more able to relate to, as per the norms of mass marketed fiction that developed at that time. so, the aloof and likeable solarian (gladia) is transformed into a somewhat disgusting, contemptible slut that has nothing worthwhile to say, including about her orgasm (why put that in your robot novel? who wants to read that kind of smut? who cares?). further, they had to include some kind of 70s hipster kid with ironic facial hair that's unable to get laid, to try to appeal to a certain segment of reader. none of this adds anything to the specific story or to the broader arch of the narrative and probably should have been cut - if the truth no doubt wasn't that it was included on the urging of the publisher, in the first place. so, asimov becomes a sad reflection of the empty society that he's writing from, at the dawn of reaganism. hey, could you prove reagan wasn't a robot? he survived a bullet, didn't he?
so, i'm not reacting well to the more contemporary style, i'm finding myself missing the classic asimov that's above gratuitous sex and not interested in empty plot development. in the 40s and 50s, science fiction was just a mechanism for dystopian literature, so it was not fundamentally different than other types of literature, really, it just had a different setting. and, that would have been true through the 60s (you can really see that in the initial run of star trek, which frequently played on everything in the traditional canon of literature, from shakespeare to classical mythology), up until star wars, which sort of broke everything and left the genre in a juvenile state of focusing on special effects, like any other adventure film. this third robot novel was written and published in the early 80s, in the midst of the major shift in the genre that was happening. the reality is that it appears that asimov was actually coerced (perhaps by large dollar figures) to return to writing fiction within the context of the blockbuster scifi films of the late 70s and early 80s, given that he was responsible for so many of the ideas underlying them. for that reason, the text seems to lack the more allegorical writing of his earlier years - it's just a run-on story about the adventures of an earthling and two robots, designed for the all-of-a-sudden very large market for vacuous adventurist science fiction.
this text also goes over a lot of previous ideas for the apparent reason of acting as a subtle means of advertising for his previous stories. the calvin references work their way into the story, but they don't add anything to it.
that said, asimov isn't entirely embracing this new reality, either. the critique of the sex life of aurorans seems to be a reflection of asimov's views on sexuality within the bourgeois elite in new york city, specifically, in the 70s. asimov seems to be suggesting that bourgeois american culture has overdone it on the sex, and reduced it to something meaningless and boring - so much so that the promise of unhindered sex with robots offers an escape from the ubiquitous mundanity of sex with people. i have to admit some sympathy with this perspective. this marxist critique of bourgeois sexuality (in an auroran society that is otherwise broadly communist - the same confusing juxtaposition that is in the second novel) is the closest thing to a purpose in the text, although he drops the narrative about a third of the way in, and instead detours off into pointless character development, to expand the length of the text for no real apparent reason, other than to try to create these characters that are supposed to generate feelings of identity in the reader. i might actually suggest that asimov may have been trying to write a third robot novel in the same framework as the first two (they all represent a potential failure point leading to a communist dystopia: the overcrowded kibbutz of earth, the marxist alienation of solaria and the empty bourgeois hedonism of vanguardist aurora), but got cut-off halfway by a publisher trying to create something that would appeal to star wars fans, who co-opted the novel into just aimlessly going on for hundreds of pages of empty action/adventure nonsense. sadly...
so, if the point of the story is that it's supposed to be about the emptiness of capitalist excess and unchecked bourgeois hedonism, it is even less cohesive and less developed than the second volume. but, the idea is there - if just barely. i can identify no further discernible purpose in the 430 page paperback, besides to waste the reader's time. the middle section really wasn't necessary - he could have gone from gladia to amadiro and maybe should have.
i think it's important to point out that asimov is repeatedly pretty rough on baley, and sort of passive aggressive with daneel, indicating that he might not be so excited about these characters any longer. i'd strongly suspect he was toying with killing them off. in fact, daneel has a very minor part in this story; the more important robot is giskard. baley is repeatedly treated as a fool that is unable to fend for himself, as a consequence of living in the kibbutz; there are frequent allusions to his child-like state, to the robots as his caretakers and even to gladia, at one point, as his mother. baley is not killed in the end, but he doesn't appear in the fourth installment, which i'm now dreading reading.
in terms of his broader narrative, asimov introduces a conflict between the pro-auroran globalists and the pan-humanity humanists that the humanists win, in this installment. you'd have to imagine that asimov (acting director of the humanist society) would be most sympathetic to humanists. it's a bit of a hint as to who represents his own views, in truth - something that might be different in 1980 than it was in 1955. asimov's subtle slights on baley may be another indication that he's changing hosts in the story, so to speak, and that he now looks down on baley, whereas he previously saw him as his own voice. asimov's globalists - a vanguard elite that puts itself first and looks down on the broader swath of humanity - is not all that different than the contemporary concept of globalist, which comes from a strange merging of far-left and far-tight anti-elitism. asimov seems to want to present humanism as a truer from of egalitarianism, a less corrupt concept of liberalism and a more authentic left. fastolfe's decency is presented in this context of representing humanism. asimov and i may quibble over details as to what the anti-vanguard left ought to look like (he was a liberal, and i'm an anarchist), but we seem to agree on the need to present a counter-left as a movement against vanguardism. but, once again, this is about leftist infighting - it's not some broad ideological discourse. only the primitivist utopians on earth seem to offer any opposition to the spread of communism throughout the galaxy.
so, i'd have to broadly describe this as disappointing, but i really do get where it's coming from, and in some ways it might have been impossible to avoid. i suppose that if you want to read the whole thing then you can't skip it, but i'll tell you: you're not missing much if you did.
potential
state capitol
the briefcase in the taxi
the bird that sang bass
the last caesar
saving humanity
a matter of principal
the evil drink does
writing time
triply unique
the ten second election
dashing through the snow
the year of the feast
the queen and king
hallucination - gold
logic is logic
- robots and empire (III):
he travels the fastest
feghoot & the courts - gold
the eye of the beholder
more things in hevaen and earth
the mind's construction
left to right - gold
the fights of spring
galatea
the fable of the three princes - magic
the two centimetre demon
the turning point
flight of fancy
the smile of the chipper - gold
the instability - gold
goodbye to earth - gold
alexander the god
northwesttward
the mad scientist
to your health
- too bad (VII): accepting the truth that chemo/radiation is a bad approach, mini robots to eat cancer isn't that far off from targeted gene therapy as a better solution. it's the same idea. although, it's worth pointing out that asimov had a phd in biochemistry, here, and still decided to use robots instead of chemistry; is that actually valuable foresight as to what approach is likely to actually work or is he missing the obvious? i'm curious how a microrobot would evade the macrophages, though, which opens up the opposite concern - microrobots as viruses.
fault-intolerant - gold
in the canyon - gold
kid brother - gold
gold - gold
cal - gold
prince delightful and the flameless dragon - magic
frustration - gold
battle hymn
the nations in space
4:13
that was actually a bit of a distraction, but it's done, now.
the cleaning's done.
i need to get in the shower, finally. and, i'm actually going to go back over robots and empire first and make sure my notes are solid.
i know this text was written late, and as an addendum, but don't make that mistake - everything asimov did was on-the-fly. this is the text that really explains everything.
5:04
sleeping sucks :(.
i want this done first, so here i go.
11:01
so, rather than keep reposting those two huge posts, i've decided to create a page for asimov:
this will link from the book review page, which is on the side:
i will intend to do something like that for each author, as i work through the list, although most will not require as much effort.
11:49
this is going to be lengthy and a little painful. i'm both going to expose a level of sort of hidden genius here, and deconstruct asimov as sort of a hack.
listen: i'm a classical history nerd with degrees in computer science, law and mathematics. i started off in physics - a hard science - and have an undeclared minor in the topic. i'm also an anarchist, with a sympathy for marx (and no sympathy for lenin). now, the logic here is maybe a little circular, granted, in that i'm admittedly a creation of asimov, and that i have all these interests in no small part because i read asimov very young, but i'm nonetheless the perfect person to rip this apart.
i'm going to do this in point form first and then try to make sense of it after.
as mentioned, this text is actually relatively developed. asimov isn't known for writing what might be called high literature, but his late consolidating texts come closest to the mark.
13:17
these are my expanded notes for the first couple of pages, just to start:
- in robots and empire, giskard emerges as an allegory of historical materialism, who guides the vanguard spacers into clearing a path for the proletariat earthlings to take over the galaxy. it's pretty neat, and pretty heavy-handed. that's the simple answer as to what this is about: the robot giskard (the technology) acting as the unseen, background force that delivers the galaxy into the hands of the galactic settlers, even if only via a few plot twists. the anarchist allegory holds, in that the spacer vanguard continues to need to be cleared for the proletariat settlers, and we now have the additional force of historical materialism, in the form of the robot giskard, which was introduced at the end of the last text (which is functionally really just an elaborate introduction to this more substantive one), acting via technological determinism, to accomplish the task. but, asimov also introduces a number of additional layers that overlap through many points of history. that needs to be teased apart through the course of this write-up.
- in terms of plot development, though, this book, for better or worse, is about gladia, even if she's rather roughly disposed of as sort of useless, in the end. gladia does redeem herself as a more likeable and interesting character, even if asimov is frequently condescending about it, and even if it is largely through the control of giskard, who uses her as a vessel throughout the text. asimov does let a few misogynistic tendencies show, but it seems that they're ideas he picked up later in life - there was really no sign of any such biases when he was younger. that's sort of disappointing, but it's real, and it is there. it seems to be sort of resigned, though. he seems to want to present her as independent-minded and strong-willed, but also seems thoroughly convinced that she isn't actually either of these things, despite his personal desire that she ought to be. so, this portrayal would seem to be more specific, in intent, than general. i guess these sorts of inverted, complicated relationships develop over time with characters that you spend 30+ years writing about. if giskard is the hegelian "spirit of the age" underlying marx' concept of historical materialism, and what is guiding history to it's intended end point, gladia acts as the physical manifestation of that spirit through various roles - as heroine, as jane fonda style activist (something i'll come back to.) and as oratorically dominant politician. she didn't know she had it in her, is what she says. but, she was just a dumb terminal for the robot, that was, in truth, in total control...
- asimov misses the opportunity to present gladia as a thoughtful, existentialist thinker, and instead presents her as an (at least sometimes likeable) airheaded blonde that can't get beyond an obsession with her own sexuality. she finds longevity meaningless, but it's only because asimov decided not to provide her with any sort of intellect. she could be writing symphonies or painting masterpieces with her decades of time. she could become a roboticist, even. instead, the opening pages have her stargazing and essentially wasting her time. and, then she complains she's bored and lonely, after having done nothing with herself. while i'd rather read a book with a dark existentialist central character that is brooding over the meaninglessness of longevity than one about an airhead that just can't figure out whatever it is that she might do with herself, asimov is deciding to present one point rather than the other: in a hypothetical reality of longevity of this sort, gladias will exist, and they certainly will not appreciate the time they have, or know how to use it. asimov does, in his defense, also set up the intellectual alter-gladia in vasilia, so it's not like all the blondes are dumb, in the text...but the one it's really about certainly is. it's not entirely clear whether asimov intends to be forceful with this, in presenting an argument against longevity, or if he's just exploring the topic in an objective and disinterested manner, but my own takeaway is that the benefits of longevity are unfortunately going to end up lost on the mentally feeble, and that is indeed a valid point to make - you can give people immortality, and watch them use it fantasizing about porn, then complain that they gain nothing from it, and what can you do besides find a wall to bang your head on? immortality is no antidote to stupidity. so, it's user error, it's not a problem with the system. this isn't the place to insert my own philosophy, but my personal perspective is that it's the short lives that lack meaning, because they aren't long enough to do anything meaningful in; the only possible way out of what i'd consider the futility of finite existence is to extend lifespans by decades or even by centuries. i guess that, eventually, ten thousand years from now, i might run out of things to do. but, i have to expect i'd feel i'm just getting started, at the young age of 230. it's too bad that gladia gets bored so easily - that she can't figure out how to use her time. then again, she might find me painfully prudish, in my disinterest in what she considers to be the experiential basis of existence, but the difference is that i'm objectively correct - if you have centuries to live, and have run out of experiences, what's left is intellect. there's no real reason to choose one or the other, but if finding new experiences eventually burns itself out, finding new knowledge, or creating new art, never will. in choosing one or the other, if you must, you make the choice of setting yourself up for success or failure. at least gladia finds some kind of calling in the end, even if it's put into her head by the robot, giskard.
- it's worth pointing out that, while baley does not appear in the text, he does set everything in motion. this is quite an outsized role for an undercover cop to play in history, is it not? the basic silliness of elevating a detective into this sort of role aside, baley is the only person that knows of giskard's abilities for centuries leading up to the novel, and he is consequently the only one giving the robot orders. so, if giskard is historical materialism, does that make baley insert historical character...? i think the answer is an emphatic no. baley is a bad knockoff of sherlock holmes, and nothing more, and the silliness of placing him as the central point of history should really be called attention to for what it is. but, then again, isn't it silly to put any messiah in that place in history? however you want to parse it, from baley's instructions to giskard come the spirit of historical materialism, the laws of humanics, the zeroth law and, eventually, psychohistory. asimov wanted to unify this, and he did. that it's fundamentally silly is secondary to the point, other than to ask how he could have avoided that.
- through this text, asimov balances the need to meet market demand for an empty sci fi adventure novel (and this is not a detective novel in the sense the others are) with his clear desire to unify his universe, and write more substantive literature, to the extent that he was able to. i think he missed the mark in robots of dawn, and that he gets a lot closer to it here. but, it is still necessary to point out that the text is exceedingly plot-heavy. the difference is that there's something going on here under the plot, and there often wasn't in the robots of dawn. you don't want your literature to be too dry, either, or nobody (except me) will read it. it could be cut down a little, but it's a much more enjoyable read from my perspective, and i suspect it's probably exciting enough for less probing minds, as well. so, he hits that balance.
- in this text, asimov more deeply explores the ironic reversal of robots adjusting humans. the human-adjusting robot was created via a random adjustment by a human, of course - but then that robot spends centuries adjusting humans, who have largely given up on adjusting robots. in the end, the robot adjusts another robot, which is a symbolic breakthrough in the technology.
- list of adjustments made by giskard in the context of the allegory:
1) giskard adjusts gladia to meet mandamus, which sets the process in motion (p. 13).
2)
- asimov introduces a zeroth law as a major subplot in this text by asking the question: how do you decide what is or isn't harmful to humans? i didn't draw attention to this before because i was focused on the marxist allegory, but asimov's robot laws are clearly quite influenced by mill's harm principle, which is an extrapolation of the old celtic code do as you may, but harm none. it is *not* jesus' golden rule, or a good samaritan principle - it is the logical negation of both these things. the harm principle provides for no concept of obligation, and for no concept of reciprocity, it is simply a statement that a body in authority can only restrict individual liberty in an attempt to prevent harm. it is a statement about individual conduct and really seeks to free the individual from responsibility to others: we demand no obligation that you help people, but we insist that you just merely don't harm people. as we are dealing with the liberal asimov here, this is no doubt the more appropriate reading, even if asimov clearly has sympathies with the collectivist tendencies in the populist progressivism of his youth. so, when can a robot interfere with human liberty? the answer is only to prevent harm - and asimov works that out via example, repeatedly. this elevates the harm principle to a proudhonian style social contract between people (rather than as a contract restricting the behaviour of the state), and i very much like that kind of thinking. asimov is very much describing perfect anarchism, with this, whether he realizes it or not, and even if he's imagining something more classically liberal. but, to be rigorous, one must also examine the places where the system breaks down, where the logic becomes blurry, where it is not clear what is harm, or how to order harm, and relativistic concepts of harm must take over in the void of ambiguity. that was always the point, wasn't it, in observing calvin and baley work the logic out? but, that's what's going on with this - asimov is finally coming to terms with the need for an underlying principle in the balancing of the other laws. he succeeds in developing it in a very subtle way, that eventually leads to what he's calling the zeroth law: that a robot cannot harm humanity, or allow harm to come to humanity through inaction. the first law becomes a special case of the zeroth law. this is his attempt to order these contradictions that develop on the boundary points of a society ordered by mill's principles of harm aversion, extrapolated to the individual level via the proudhonian contract, even if he wouldn't articulate it in those terms.
- his treatment of the zeroth law also finally takes the plunge into a total allegory of thermodynamics, where a similar zeroth law has been articulated, on much the same grounds. robots and energy are both completely governed by their respective three laws. there is nothing beyond them. but, both systems are clearly incomplete. i'm picking up shades of godel in the question of completeness v consistency, but it's vague. and, are the laws of robots incomplete or inconsistent? we must decide! we generally accept that thermodynamics is incomplete, not inconsistent. or, at least, we haven't found a contradiction, yet, and we lack the imagination to construct that thought experiment, at this time. so, we have the 0th law to fill the gap, in both robotics and thermodynamics. and, there is in fact a parallel in the logic, as the 0th supersedes the first, in both contexts.
- the spacers were previously described as a vanguard, while the earthlings were described as a proletariat. i found this pretty heavy-handed. that said, asimov's intent here is to merge this series with his other series, so he needs to bring in extra layers. the layer of the spacers as greeks was always there, but he exaggerates it through the course of the text by having the spacers speak of the earthlings as barbarians; asimov continues this historical allusion forwards with the projection of an earth-centered galactic empire, which clearly places the earthlings in the role of the barbarian romans, to counter the civilized greeks. obvious, right? except it isn't - asimov blurs this up, and i think the right deconstruction is that he's writing analogies on top of themselves, that he's mixing metaphors, that he's more interested in pulling out exciting story lines than he is in holding strictly to historical allusions and that he may have even changed his mind a few times as he was writing it, not expecting anybody to follow it, anyways. so, i should just draw attention to the allusions and contradictions, rather than try to build a unified narrative.
- so, somewhere early on in this text, asimov attempts to convert the spacers into romans and the earthlings into carthaginians, but it's never convincing, and it doesn't really add up. his portrayal of the spacers is just not very roman, and never is, not even after conversion. one could argue that he's trying to convert the spacer greeks into spacer romans via descent (in which case gladia becomes the greek and her 5th generation descendant, mandamus, which is a legal term ordering a lower court to fulfill it's duty, becomes the roman - a point that asimov was careful to clarify, so that nobody might think our grecian descended romans might be descended from carthaginian earthlings, instead), but it leaves the narrative with the glaring inaccuracy of the carthaginians being the ancestral race, which asimov no doubt was aware was false. rather, it seems that asimov just wanted to introduce the exciting story line of the earth being destroyed, and wanted to introduce the historical reference to...let's be honest: to be pretentious. it didn't really matter if it added up, or if it broke the allegory, or whatever else. so, this is sort of a problem if you read the text too closely because it never gets resolved, but it's easy enough to look past. asimov is pretty baldly bringing in the punic wars as a reference, but he does so in such a perfunctory and empty manner that i wish he wouldn't have - there's no hannibal, for example. there's no struggle at all. there's just a nutcase carrying out a secret plot to destroy the earth. in the broader arc of asimov's narrative, the spacers remain best described as overly civilized greeks, and the earthlings as the upstart barbaric romans that replaced them and went out to build an empire, and that will have to withstand asimov's apparent change of heart, late in life, as to the relative importance of carthaginian (that is, proto-hebrew) civilization to greek civilization - a point that is still very open, given that carthage was, indeed, thoroughly destroyed, along with almost all references to it, in history. our knowledge of carthage outside of the context of the punic wars is in truth so poor that we can barely say much about it at all. asimov may have taken a fair number of liberties regarding interpolating the importance of carthage, due to the absence of knowledge about it, and he wouldn't be the only person that's done that.
- it follows that the discourse between gladia and mandamus is one between greek and roman, and there's a historical debate underlying it, in code.
- the meek do not "inherit" (a term asimov uses frequently) the galaxy, the strong do. and, yes - gibbon is a clear influence on asimov, but the whole thing is again sort of confusingly applied. who are these various groups meant to represent? greeks? romans? carthaginians? surely not muslims - and surely not muslims. but, the ideas in gibbon are nonetheless thrown around here, and it's hard to know if asimov is doing so generally or with any specific historical allusions in mind. it would be reasonable, in some sense, to apply the logic in gibbon to the struggle between the greeks and romans for the eastern mediterranean, for example - you could write an essay about that, and have it be entirely cogent. the greeks fell into decadence and decline by becoming too civilized, and the militaristic romans took over - and that seems to be the first idea asimov had with this, if it wasn't his only one, or his last one (remember that this was written in the 80s, decades after the original foundation series, the three empire novels and the first two robot novels). of course, those romans were then conquered by the greeks from the inside out, who then became too civilized and decadent, and suffered the same fate as the greeks before them. but, it gets muddied up by all the outside references, and hard to pull apart into anything clear. maybe he even did that on purpose - maybe he's just building up contextless references as an idea salad, maybe he's reordering history, maybe he's stirring the pot. maybe it's a random historical reference generator. but, the most clear idea in the mess of ideas is the idea of applying gibbon to the roman conquest of hellenistic europe and asia, even if he attempted to blow that up, in hindsight. i think a more direct discussion of the influence of gibbon on asimov should wait until we actually have a galactic empire. but, this discourse is there - the spacers are weak and decadent and in decay, to be replaced by the more vigorous and warlike earthling barbarians.
- and another layer? the idea that the spacers place a higher value on individual life also comes up repeatedly (going back several texts, although i'd have to look up the exact references and i'm not going to - it predates robots and empire), which was an argument that liberal capitalists frequently directed at the communist bloc, who supposedly felt that life was expendable. so, based on that allusion, he seems to want to align the collapsing spacer society with the bourgeois decay in the capitalist west and the growing settler power with the rising collectivism of the communist east. while asimov is a known history nerd, the surprise is really that it took so long to develop a clear analogy between the east and the west, in the context of the ongoing cold war; it's not readily drawn out from any of his earlier robot novels, at least. that might seem forward thinking in 2021, but i bet it didn't in 1989; i bet it seemed like he missed the mark, on that one. in the long run, we're all dead, right?
- mandamus' first name is worth taking note of: levular. that is, he is named leveller, after the utopian socialist english political movement, which is no doubt why gladia describes him as looking like a puritan. i think what asimov is doing here is drawing an ideological continuity between mandamus and the medievalists, to bring back the same foe that he began with. but, it doesn't appear to get developed as well as it might have.
- likewise, amadiro is clearly initially presented in the previous text as of semitic origin. he's sort of the archetype of the jewish bad guy - something that seems so out of place in an asimov text, that it's enough to make you wonder if he really wrote it. and, that might ultimately be underlying his pro-carthaginian backlash, too. amadiro is the hook-nosed evil jew from the start, so what's he doing playing the role of the roman, in having carthage destroyed? if you are not cognizant of the depth of the roman propaganda against the carthaginians, you have to understand that it's the actual basis of anti-semitism in the west. the romans claimed that the carthaginians ate babies, for example - not joking. and, we can't prove they didn't, either; there seems to be some evidence that they might have (or at least might have routinely sacrificed them, abe and isaac style). so, how do you parse the anti-semitic tropes in a book written by a russian jew, as deployed to destroy carthage, which he seems to have developed an affinity for, on the ground that they're the ancestral hebrews? you can't - you can't at all. it's incoherent, as allegory; it's historical references thrown on top of each other and void of any order, it's mixing the pot. it's an author that thinks developing the plot comes first, and allegories come second.
- so, i'm going to draw attention to ideas as they come up, but i'm not going to hold to any specific allegory (besides the three meta-layers of spacer/greek/west and earth/roman/east) because, if anything, i think asimov may have been trying to jumble it up.
15:52
so, i'm finishing up robots and empire and this is a much better written text than robots of dawn, as well as being much more identifiable as asimov. gone are the gratuitous sex and awful attempts at stimulating an identity response in the reader, although there is obviously a large inverted influence from return of the jedi. it's like asimov said "ok. i don't actually mind if you steal all my ideas. but, like, can i write my own screenplay?".
it's probably best interpreted as asimov reclaiming his own franchise.
but, it's obviously written to close down the robot universe and transition into the empire universe - intentionally. conscientiously. - so i'm actually going to hold off a little on the write-up. i mean, it's sort of the last robot novel, and sort of the first empire novel. that means i need to frame it properly, which means i should probably do the review last.
that said, i want to reframe my project goals on this. how many books can i read on fridays? i decided on two, but that's too vague - i can read two 200 page novels (as the first two robot novels were), but i can probably only get through one 500 page novel, which is closer to the length of the last two robot novels. i'm not altering the idea of one book per week, in the journal phase. but, i'm setting myself up with 500 pages max per week on the catchup run, until i'm caught up.
that means the robots of dawn can be dated for the 3rd, robots and empire can be dated for the tenth and i still have at least two empire novels to get through this weekend, although i'll probably do all three.
when i'm done with that, i'm going to focus on doing one journal write-up a day for the next week.
so, that's what i'm doing this week - and i should hopefully be caught up in a few days.
what is this text about, though? it's actually the only one of the four with legitimate depth. if the first one was a heavy-handed allegory about a conflict between utopian socialists and an elitist vanguard that ended in a dialectic of cooperation, and the second two were looser allegories about alienation and hedonism, the fourth finally pulls it together and takes it to the next step: historical materialism enters in the technologically determinist mechanism (and marx was a teleological technological determinist, despite his empty pleas to the contrary) of a mind-controlling robot that is opening the way for proletariat settlement across the galaxy. it turns out that the spacers are actually under the control of the technology. asimov develops this in multiple directions that i'm going to wait to discuss much more because i think he makes some confusing allusions (carthago delenda est is difficult to put into broader context), but i'm going to answer the question in a way that i think is not what many people want to assume - i think he's converting the vanguard spacer worlds into a historical coalition of greek city states, and contrasting it against the proletariat settlers, who he's casting as early romans, before they become too imperialist. so, this isn't just a story about technological determinism guiding robots into playing the role of historical materialism in guiding the vanguard out of the way to make space for the proletariat; it's also a discourse on why the greeks failed and the romans succeeded. there's layers here, and a lot to deconstruct, but asimov can be inconsistent at the best of times, and i want to work out the contradictions and inconsistencies before i do this in too much detail.
it doesn't really make sense to think of the spacers as romans and the earthlings as carthaginians, for example. the carthaginians were the older power, to begin with - the more civilized state. it was the romans that were the upstart. nor did the romans and carthaginians have common origins - they were distinctly different races of people, in just about every way. but, the romans and greeks had common origins in the proto-germanic powers to their north. the spacer confederation seems more like something like the delian league, trying to react to the rise of the barbarian romans.
i'll note, though, that asimov is pretty vicious on the settlers, who he is constantly disparaging...
anyways, that's just a stop-gap update, for now. i need to eat, and do a little cleaning, and i'll get to the next batch after that.
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- in robots and empire, giskard emerges as an allegory of historical materialism, who guides the vanguard spacers into clearing a path for the proletariat earthlings to take over the galaxy. it's pretty neat, and pretty heavy-handed. that's the simple answer as to what this is about: the robot giskard (the technology) acting as the unseen, background force that delivers the galaxy into the hands of the galactic settlers, even if only via a few plot twists. the anarchist allegory holds, in that the spacer vanguard continues to need to be cleared for the proletariat settlers, and we now have the additional force of historical materialism, in the form of the robot giskard, which was introduced at the end of the last text (which is functionally really just an elaborate introduction to this more substantive one), acting via technological determinism, to accomplish the task. but, asimov also introduces a number of additional layers that overlap through many points of history. that needs to be teased apart through the course of this write-up.
- the idea that the real force controlling the events in the narrative is giskard is actually introduced at the very end of the third installment of the series, which he develops in the fourth installment as a further allegory on the idea of historical materialism, through the mechanism of technological determinism. as marx would have argued that the vanguard must ultimately be guided by the forces of technological advancement, and must in the end be replaced by the proletariat, it turns out that the spacers are actually under the control of a mind-reading robot, who is trying to clear them out to make way for the earthlings to escape the kibbutz. this really closes the marxist allegory pretty neatly.
- "if laws are to be developed that enable the current of history to be predicted, then one must deal with large populations, the larger the better. that itself might be the first law of psychohistory, the key to the study of humanics." - giskard.
- second quote by giskard.
- in terms of plot development, though, this book, for better or worse, is about gladia, even if she's rather roughly disposed of as sort of useless, in the end. gladia does redeem herself as a more likeable and interesting character, even if asimov is frequently condescending about it, and even if it is largely through the control of giskard, who uses her as a vessel throughout the text. asimov does let a few misogynistic tendencies show, but it seems that they're ideas he picked up later in life - there was really no sign of any such biases when he was younger. that's sort of disappointing, but it's real, and it is there. it seems to be sort of resigned, though. he seems to want to present her as independent-minded and strong-willed, but also seems thoroughly convinced that she isn't actually either of these things, despite his personal desire that she ought to be. so, this portrayal would seem to be more specific, in intent, than general. i guess these sorts of inverted, complicated relationships develop over time with characters that you spend 30+ years writing about. if giskard is the hegelian "spirit of the age" underlying marx' concept of historical materialism, and what is guiding history to it's intended end point, gladia acts as the physical manifestation of that spirit through various roles - as heroine, as jane fonda style activist (something i'll come back to.) and as oratorically dominant politician. she didn't know she had it in her, is what she says. but, she was just a dumb terminal for the robot, that was, in truth, in total control...
- asimov misses the opportunity to present gladia as a thoughtful, existentialist thinker, and instead presents her as an (at least sometimes likeable) airheaded blonde that can't get beyond an obsession with her own sexuality. she finds longevity meaningless, but it's only because asimov decided not to provide her with any sort of intellect. she could be writing symphonies or painting masterpieces with her decades of time. she could become a roboticist, even. instead, the opening pages have her stargazing and essentially wasting her time. and, then she complains she's bored and lonely, after having done nothing with herself. while i'd rather read a book with a dark existentialist central character that is brooding over the meaninglessness of longevity than one about an airhead that just can't figure out whatever it is that she might do with herself, asimov is deciding to present one point rather than the other: in a hypothetical reality of longevity of this sort, gladias will exist, and they certainly will not appreciate the time they have, or know how to use it. asimov does, in his defense, also set up the intellectual alter-gladia in vasilia, so it's not like all the blondes are dumb, in the text...but the one it's really about certainly is. it's not entirely clear whether asimov intends to be forceful with this, in presenting an argument against longevity, or if he's just exploring the topic in an objective and disinterested manner, but my own takeaway is that the benefits of longevity are unfortunately going to end up lost on the mentally feeble, and that is indeed a valid point to make - you can give people immortality, and watch them use it fantasizing about porn, then complain that they gain nothing from it, and what can you do besides find a wall to bang your head on? immortality is no antidote to stupidity. so, it's user error, it's not a problem with the system. this isn't the place to insert my own philosophy, but my personal perspective is that it's the short lives that lack meaning, because they aren't long enough to do anything meaningful in; the only possible way out of what i'd consider the futility of finite existence is to extend lifespans by decades or even by centuries. i guess that, eventually, ten thousand years from now, i might run out of things to do. but, i have to expect i'd feel i'm just getting started, at the young age of 230. it's too bad that gladia gets bored so easily - that she can't figure out how to use her time. then again, she might find me painfully prudish, in my disinterest in what she considers to be the experiential basis of existence, but the difference is that i'm objectively correct - if you have centuries to live, and have run out of experiences, what's left is intellect. there's no real reason to choose one or the other, but if finding new experiences eventually burns itself out, finding new knowledge, or creating new art, never will. in choosing one or the other, if you must, you make the choice of setting yourself up for success or failure. at least gladia finds some kind of calling in the end, even if it's put into her head by the robot, giskard.
- it's worth pointing out that, while baley does not appear in the text, he does set everything in motion. this is quite an outsized role for an undercover cop to play in history, is it not? the basic silliness of elevating a detective into this sort of role aside, baley is the only person that knows of giskard's abilities for centuries leading up to the novel, and he is consequently the only one giving the robot orders. so, if giskard is historical materialism, does that make baley insert historical character...? i think the answer is an emphatic no. baley is a bad knockoff of sherlock holmes, and nothing more, and the silliness of placing him as the central point of history should really be called attention to for what it is. but, then again, isn't it silly to put any messiah in that place in history? however you want to parse it, from baley's instructions to giskard come the spirit of historical materialism, the laws of humanics, the zeroth law and, eventually, psychohistory. asimov wanted to unify this, and he did. that it's fundamentally silly is secondary to the point, other than to ask how he could have avoided that.
- through this text, asimov balances the need to meet market demand for an empty sci fi adventure novel (and this is not a detective novel in the sense the others are) with his clear desire to unify his universe, and write more substantive literature, to the extent that he was able to. i think he missed the mark in robots of dawn, and that he gets a lot closer to it here. but, it is still necessary to point out that the text is exceedingly plot-heavy. the difference is that there's something going on here under the plot, and there often wasn't in the robots of dawn. you don't want your literature to be too dry, either, or nobody (except me) will read it. it could be cut down a little, but it's a much more enjoyable read from my perspective, and i suspect it's probably exciting enough for less probing minds, as well. so, he hits that balance.
- in this text, asimov more deeply explores the ironic reversal of robots adjusting humans. the human-adjusting robot was created via a random adjustment by a human, of course - but then that robot spends centuries adjusting humans, who have largely given up on adjusting robots. in the end, the robot adjusts another robot, which is a symbolic breakthrough in the technology.
- list of adjustments made by giskard in the context of the allegory:
1) centuries before the events in the text, giskard adjusts fastolfe to bring him to earth. while on earth, giskard adjusts the assembly members on earth to want to explore the galaxy.
2) on returning to aurora, giskard then adjusts amadiro to prevent him from sending humaniform robots to colonize other planets, after adjusting fastolfe to bring him to the meeting. this gives the proletariat settlers the go ahead, while shutting out the vanguard spacers.
3) to start the text, giskard adjusts gladia to meet mandamus, which sets the process of the text in motion.
4) when talking to mandamus, giskard adjusts gladia to agree to meet the settler.
5) when talking to the settler (dg baley), giskard adjust gladia to agree to go to solaria.
6)
- asimov introduces a zeroth law as a major subplot in this text by asking the question: how do you decide what is or isn't harmful to humans? i didn't draw attention to this before because i was focused on the marxist allegory, but asimov's robot laws are clearly quite influenced by mill's harm principle, which is an extrapolation of the old celtic code do as you may, but harm none. it is *not* jesus' golden rule, or a good samaritan principle - it is the logical negation of both these things. the harm principle provides for no concept of obligation, and for no concept of reciprocity, it is simply a statement that a body in authority can only restrict individual liberty in an attempt to prevent harm. it is a statement about individual conduct and really seeks to free the individual from responsibility to others: we demand no obligation that you help people, but we insist that you just merely don't harm people. as we are dealing with the liberal asimov here, this is no doubt the more appropriate reading, even if asimov clearly has sympathies with the collectivist tendencies in the populist progressivism of his youth. so, when can a robot interfere with human liberty? the answer is only to prevent harm - and asimov works that out via example, repeatedly. this elevates the harm principle to a proudhonian style social contract between people (rather than as a contract restricting the behaviour of the state), and i very much like that kind of thinking. asimov is very much describing perfect anarchism, with this, whether he realizes it or not, and even if he's imagining something more classically liberal. but, to be rigorous, one must also examine the places where the system breaks down, where the logic becomes blurry, where it is not clear what is harm, or how to order harm, and relativistic concepts of harm must take over in the void of ambiguity. that was always the point, wasn't it, in observing calvin and baley work the logic out? but, that's what's going on with this - asimov is finally coming to terms with the need for an underlying principle in the balancing of the other laws. he succeeds in developing it in a very subtle way, that eventually leads to what he's calling the zeroth law: that a robot cannot harm humanity, or allow harm to come to humanity through inaction. the first law becomes a special case of the zeroth law. this is his attempt to order these contradictions that develop on the boundary points of a society ordered by mill's principles of harm aversion, extrapolated to the individual level via the proudhonian contract, even if he wouldn't articulate it in those terms.
- his treatment of the zeroth law also finally takes the plunge into a total allegory of thermodynamics, where a similar zeroth law has been articulated, on much the same grounds. robots and energy are both completely governed by their respective three laws. there is nothing beyond them. but, both systems are clearly incomplete. i'm picking up shades of godel in the question of completeness v consistency, but it's vague. and, are the laws of robots incomplete or inconsistent? we must decide! we generally accept that thermodynamics is incomplete, not inconsistent. or, at least, we haven't found a contradiction, yet, and we lack the imagination to construct that thought experiment, at this time. so, we have the 0th law to fill the gap, in both robotics and thermodynamics. and, there is in fact a parallel in the logic, as the 0th supersedes the first, in both contexts.
- the spacers were previously described as a vanguard, while the earthlings were described as a proletariat. i found this pretty heavy-handed. that said, asimov's intent here is to merge this series with his other series, so he needs to bring in extra layers. the layer of the spacers as greeks was always there, but he exaggerates it through the course of the text by having the spacers speak of the earthlings as barbarians; asimov continues this historical allusion forwards with the projection of an earth-centered galactic empire, which clearly places the earthlings in the role of the barbarian romans, to counter the civilized greeks. obvious, right? except it isn't - asimov blurs this up, and i think the right deconstruction is that he's writing analogies on top of themselves, that he's mixing metaphors, that he's more interested in pulling out exciting story lines than he is in holding strictly to historical allusions and that he may have even changed his mind a few times as he was writing it, not expecting anybody to follow it, anyways. so, i should just draw attention to the allusions and contradictions, rather than try to build a unified narrative.
- so, somewhere early on in this text, asimov attempts to convert the spacers into romans and the earthlings into carthaginians, but it's never convincing, and it doesn't really add up. his portrayal of the spacers is just not very roman, and never is, not even after conversion. one could argue that he's trying to convert the spacer greeks into spacer romans via descent (in which case gladia becomes the greek and her 5th generation descendant, mandamus, which is a legal term ordering a lower court to fulfill it's duty, becomes the roman - a point that asimov was careful to clarify, so that nobody might think our grecian descended romans might be descended from carthaginian earthlings, instead), but it leaves the narrative with the glaring inaccuracy of the carthaginians being the ancestral race, which asimov no doubt was aware was false. rather, it seems that asimov just wanted to introduce the exciting story line of the earth being destroyed, and wanted to introduce the historical reference to...let's be honest: to be pretentious. it didn't really matter if it added up, or if it broke the allegory, or whatever else. so, this is sort of a problem if you read the text too closely because it never gets resolved, but it's easy enough to look past. asimov is pretty baldly bringing in the punic wars as a reference, but he does so in such a perfunctory and empty manner that i wish he wouldn't have - there's no hannibal, for example. there's no struggle at all. there's just a nutcase carrying out a secret plot to destroy the earth. in the broader arc of asimov's narrative, the spacers remain best described as overly civilized greeks, and the earthlings as the upstart barbaric romans that replaced them and went out to build an empire, and that will have to withstand asimov's apparent change of heart, late in life, as to the relative importance of carthaginian (that is, proto-hebrew) civilization to greek civilization - a point that is still very open, given that carthage was, indeed, thoroughly destroyed, along with almost all references to it, in history. our knowledge of carthage outside of the context of the punic wars is in truth so poor that we can barely say much about it at all. asimov may have taken a fair number of liberties regarding interpolating the importance of carthage, due to the absence of knowledge about it, and he wouldn't be the only person that's done that.
- it follows that the discourse between gladia and mandamus is one between greek and roman, and there's a historical debate underlying it, in code.
- the meek do not "inherit" (a term asimov uses frequently) the galaxy, the strong do. and, yes - gibbon is a clear influence on asimov, but the whole thing is again sort of confusingly applied. who are these various groups meant to represent? greeks? romans? carthaginians? surely not muslims - and surely not muslims. but, the ideas in gibbon are nonetheless thrown around here, and it's hard to know if asimov is doing so generally or with any specific historical allusions in mind. it would be reasonable, in some sense, to apply the logic in gibbon to the struggle between the greeks and romans for the eastern mediterranean, for example - you could write an essay about that, and have it be entirely cogent. the greeks fell into decadence and decline by becoming too civilized, and the militaristic romans took over - and that seems to be the first idea asimov had with this, if it wasn't his only one, or his last one (remember that this was written in the 80s, decades after the original foundation series, the three empire novels and the first two robot novels). of course, those romans were then conquered by the greeks from the inside out, who then became too civilized and decadent, and suffered the same fate as the greeks before them. but, it gets muddied up by all the outside references, and hard to pull apart into anything clear. maybe he even did that on purpose - maybe he's just building up contextless references as an idea salad, maybe he's reordering history, maybe he's stirring the pot. maybe it's a random historical reference generator. but, the most clear idea in the mess of ideas is the idea of applying gibbon to the roman conquest of hellenistic europe and asia, even if he attempted to blow that up, in hindsight. i think a more direct discussion of the influence of gibbon on asimov should wait until we actually have a galactic empire. but, this discourse is there - the spacers are weak and decadent and in decay, to be replaced by the more vigorous and warlike earthling barbarians.
- and another layer? the idea that the spacers place a higher value on individual life also comes up repeatedly (going back several texts, although i'd have to look up the exact references and i'm not going to - it predates robots and empire), which was an argument that liberal capitalists frequently directed at the communist bloc, who supposedly felt that life was expendable. so, based on that allusion, he seems to want to align the collapsing spacer society with the bourgeois decay in the capitalist west and the growing settler power with the rising collectivism of the communist east. while asimov is a known history nerd, the surprise is really that it took so long to develop a clear analogy between the east and the west, in the context of the ongoing cold war; it's not readily drawn out from any of his earlier robot novels, at least. that might seem forward thinking in 2021, but i bet it didn't in 1989; i bet it seemed like he missed the mark, on that one. in the long run, we're all dead, right?
- the dialogue between the two robots is important in narrating the text. early in the text, giskard admits to daneel that he adjusted the earthlings to colonize and the spacers to not colonize, which is why we know that's true (although we could deduce it easily enough). however, he is uneasy about it and states as much to daneel:
"as it should be? do you think, friend daneel, that an earthperson counts for more than a spacer, even though both are human beings?"
daneel responds in this manner:
"there are differences. elijah baley would rather see his own earthpeople defeated than see the galaxy uninhabited. dr amadiro would rather see both earth and spacers dwindle than see the earth expand. the first looks with hope to the triumph of either, the second is content to see the triumph of neither. should we not choose the first, friend giskard?"
while the logic in the exchange seems to be borrowed from the judgement of solomon, it is worthwhile to point out that this text was written at the height of the military build-up between the united states and the soviet union, where reagan was ordering insane amounts of military spending, and the russians were on the brink of standing down - which they did. if the earthlings are truly meant to represent the communists, and the spacers the capitalists, it would seem to suggest that asimov is trying to apply the logic of solomon to the brinkmanship in the cold war, and awarding the universe to communism, as a result. that might explain why the underlying allegory all of a sudden takes on this character, and why the outcome is as it is.
- the exchange continues to explain that giskard is ultimately paving the way for the proletariat to fulfill the first law. i'll leave that discourse to the text, but it demonstrates how the technology is the guiding force behind historical materialism.
- in the mean time, asimov demonstrates the incompleteness of the three laws by having the robots deduce that an imminent threat to humanity exists, and they can't stop it because it would break the first law. if it's ambiguous, then, yes - clearly, the robots should be able to do something. they've uncovered a plot. for them to not act would cause harm. but, they can't get the positronic potential to harm somebody, in context. the incompleteness, here, requires a 0th law.
- on that note, also observe that the plot by the spacers/capitalists to destroy the earth/communists involves using a nuclear device. asimov's intent here is to unify the robot series with the empire series, which seems to suggest that earth underwent nuclear warfare at some point in the past (which in the 50s would have clearly been about a war between the americans and soviets, but is getting twisted around here to fit the glactic narrative, instead). so, i guess that asimov really had to introduce the soviet/american conflict for....yeah. ok. it's necessary for unification, and this is how he's doing it: it is the capitalists that pull the trigger, but asimov presents it in such a way that the communists benefit fro it, in the end. ever the optimist, i suppose. o.
- mandamus' first name is worth taking note of: levular. that is, he is named leveller, after the utopian socialist english political movement, which is no doubt why gladia describes him as looking like a puritan. i think what asimov is doing here is drawing an ideological continuity between mandamus and the medievalists, to bring back the same foe that he began with. but, it doesn't appear to get developed as well as it might have.
- likewise, amadiro is clearly initially presented in the previous text as of semitic origin. he's sort of the archetype of the jewish bad guy - something that seems so out of place in an asimov text, that it's enough to make you wonder if he really wrote it. and, that might ultimately be underlying his pro-carthaginian backlash, too. amadiro is the hook-nosed evil jew from the start, so what's he doing playing the role of the roman, in having carthage destroyed? if you are not cognizant of the depth of the roman propaganda against the carthaginians, you have to understand that it's the actual basis of anti-semitism in the west. the romans claimed that the carthaginians ate babies, for example - not joking. and, we can't prove they didn't, either; there seems to be some evidence that they might have (or at least might have routinely sacrificed them, abe and isaac style). so, how do you parse the anti-semitic tropes in a book written by a russian jew, as deployed to destroy carthage, which he seems to have developed an affinity for, on the ground that they're the ancestral hebrews? you can't - you can't at all. it's incoherent, as allegory; it's historical references thrown on top of each other and void of any order, it's mixing the pot. it's an author that thinks developing the plot comes first, and allegories come second.
- so, i'm going to draw attention to ideas as they come up, but i'm not going to hold to any specific allegory (besides the three meta-layers of spacer/greek/west and earth/roman/east) because, if anything, i think asimov may have been trying to jumble it up.
- silliness about reverence for baley aside, asimov clearly didn't want to write another baley story, as he had avoided it for a very long time. he was vicious on baley in the third part, to the extent he actually wrote it. so, it makes sense that baley dies here - and i suspect that asimov actually took great pleasure in offing him.
- two levels with discourse between amadiro and fastolfe: amadiro represents the elite, anti-proletariat component in the vanguard that wishes to stunt the expansion of communism, whereas fastolfe represents the egalitarian, pro-proletariat component of it. both are under the control of giskard, who represents historical materialism. fastolfe, remember, is the representation of asimov. but, amadiro also represents the aristocratic component of greek rule, that viewed the roman barbarians as an inferior race. and, fastolfe is quick to point out that the romans are (culturally) descended from the greeks - a point that some romans were in truth well aware of.
- earthlings presented as disgusting, unhygenic, unshaven, barbaric brutes. this is in line with both narratives, although asimov's disdain for the proletariat was always sort of misplaced, however sympathetic he might have been.
- the story is more enjoyable than the robots of dawn, but it's ultimately a bridge. gladia redeems herself. etc.
-
===
20:23
when the romans destroyed carthage, they didn't do it passively. it was intended to be permanent. they rebuilt it, but as a roman villa.
the story in the roman history texts is that they tore down every brick one by one, they salted the fields, etc. but, that was actually not that uncommon - the romans did that to a dozen cities, and the assyrians did it to babylon, too.
the romans intended to erase carthage from history. that's a different, more developed task, and a more difficult one, given that we were no longer talking about bronze age egypt (where such things were apparently routine). the roman project destroyed all written references to carthage that could be found. they translated all punic texts to latin, then burned them. they eradicated all records of trade throughout the empire.
carthage must be destroyed was not a physical statement but a temporal, historical condition.
so, our knowledge of what was a very important maritime empire in it's day is startlingly poor, by intent. and, it's long been assumed that the romans basically made this up.
i wouldn't take this as entirely conclusive proof of widespread sacrifice, because i've seen reports of similar sacrifices in italy, well into the supposed christian period. iron age humans throughout the world resorted to human sacrifice in times of drought, disease and famine - because they believed the gods were angry. i mean, what do you do, if you believe a god is going to eat you? you give it something to eat - it's a rational deduction, rooted in an insane axiom. i need more than this.
but, the fact that we can't answer such a simple question about such a powerful state reflects just how vicious the roman genocide really was, and makes other questions - like whether they circumnavigated africa, or even sailed to south america - that much more impossible to grapple with.
but. where did the baby eating jew meme actually come from, anyways? it's not where you probably think, it's much older than that. it comes from this longstanding roman accusation that the carthaginians sacrificed their children, in rituals that seemed a lot like the stories in genesis.
22:31
carthage was the name of the city, and phoenician is a greek ethnonym.
sources are scarce, but the few we have suggest they called themselves something like c'nuni.
canaanites.
spoken carthaginian is thought to have been similar enough to hebrew to have been mutually intelligible.
22:47
i've seen this labeled a thousand different ways, based on who wants to frame it.
but, the joke is that they're diggers.
look it up.
23:02
tuesday, december 21, 2021
you think rome ended in 476, right?
that was a bad year to be a roman, no doubt. and, there were many more. but, that's just wrong.
the reality is that the roman empire, as a cultural and legal entity, continued to exist in an unbroken line until it was dissolved by napoleon, in 1806.
0:16
it's worth comparing the childcare systems being rolled out in the united states and canada.
the united states is about to allow a subsidy for childcare providers to expire. this is essentially a government handout to families that might be thought of as keynesian spending, but is in truth something more like a political bribe. this is the system that canada brought in after the conservatives were elected in 2006, and is in the process of transitioning out of. a part of the reason that canada is transitioning out of it is ideological (it's just not what people want, really) and a part of the reason is that it just didn't work in decreasing child care costs.
it is not hard to understand why a specific subsidy program of this type would simply lead to inflation in that specific good. if government makes a press release to tell the whole world it is handing out money for the specific purpose of childcare, and even uses it as an election issue, then every childcare provider in the world knows that parents are getting money specifically for childcare. that is exactly what drives inflation in services: when service providers know money is earmarked. you'd see the same thing with rental handouts, or any other specifically targeted government spending. inflation is mostly driven by operating costs, but it is also a game between buyers and sellers - and sellers will gamble with price increases if they are told money is coming in. it follows that what the biden administration did and wants to keep doing is a handout for childcare providers, and not a handout for parents, who are merely acting as a third party in the transaction.
the conservatives brought the program in to replace a more socialist style system that the previous government had developed under the direction of the one-time montreal canadian hockey star, ken dryden. under dryden's proposal, children would essentially be sent to pre-school and the costs would be absorbed entirely by the state. daycare workers would need special training in order to become pre-school teachers, instead. further, childcare would become a sort of after school program. so, it was an expansion of the school system, essentially, and to be funded the same way that schools are. i strongly supported this program.
unfortunately, there was a backlash against this, as the conservatives called it out for what it was - socialism - and argued that it would "eliminate choice", which is the old bourgeois canard that they drag out whenever they want to stop something. it might "eliminate choice" for a small elite, but it broadly expanded the choices available to most people. in fact, the daycare industry massively supported the conservative proposal (which maintained a free market style daycare system via massive government subsidy) and organized against the dryden proposal. it was a huge factor in the elections of 2006 and 2008.
it's 15 years later, and the predictable has happened - this massive government subsidy has become a deadweight loss on government, as inflation in the sector has skyrocketed in response to the government subsidy. the government now has to step in to fix a structurally unsound system that they knew was stupid, and tried to prevent. our conservatives are less evil, but they're no less economically incompetent.
the system being brought in now is not as expansive as the dryden proposal, and i wish that it was. it is not intending to swallow daycare as an arm of the education system, although i'd have to hope it's the first step in that direction. rather, it's modelled after a program in quebec that creates a maximum price for government-provided daycare and then mandates provinces to create the appropriate spaces. so, in the process, you get a unionized daycare force made up of government employees. the price they're setting is $10/day.
this will get to the point that people want, which is affordable and competent childcarre available to moderate to low income workers, without creating inflation in the sector. we know that because it's worked in quebec, but also because it makes more sense.
i'm not particularly concerned about the size of the united states deficit, because i know it's merely an accounting identity. it simply represents money circulating in the economy; it's not debt in any meaningful sense. this follows from america's status as the unchallenged hegemon, which i don't see changing within the next several decades, at least. it is probably more important to ensure people have a way to get their kids in daycare than to argue about the structural sustainability of the system, even if that's more a reflection of the failure of the american political system than anything else.
but, childcare handouts are not a sustainable way to fund daycare, and such a system could not last very long without producing massive deficits, all the while doing little to actually reduce costs, because it's inherently inflationary.
i would encourage the united states to look at the system being brought in by the liberals, which is modelled after the system that has existed in quebec for many years. don't make the mistake that we made in 2006.
6:23
you don't believe it was ken dryden.
ken dryden's actually a lawyer, though. and, everybody in canada knows that.
6:33
there may be somebody editing my book reviews. i don't understand this.
i'm going to have to make sure that i keep safe copies on external drives, and backup when i'm done.
so, i have to stop to undo any edits and back up all files. i'll let you know when i'm done and upload an uncorrupted version.
anybody that would spend their time editing somebody else's blog is wholly pathetic and should immediately kill themselves.
10:50
androstenedione came in at 0.7, which is actually a little lower than female reference ranges (which start at 1.0).
i have to admit that the issue has been resolving itself, recently, one way or the other.
12:30
i'm currently frustrated...
i keep going around in circles, and it's pissing me off.
i have to finish reading through these items and making sure they haven't been altered, first. it's not what i want to do; i want to have confidence that my writing isn't being corrupted, altered, misconstrued or edited. i'm not.
again: whoever is doing this is pathetic. go away somewhere to die, please.
18:27
why now for joe manchin?
well, the president already got the part that donors wanted through, right?
my guess is that biden indicated that the charade had gone on long enough, and he wants to focus on starting a war in the new year, instead.
19:12
hey vlad...
don't you think the more foundational problem at this point is the europen union, rather than nato?
i mean, suppose that nato does pull out from much of the region - something i've also called for. then, you've still got the eu to deal with, which is a more stable long term body.
there is a big difference between myself standing up and saying that we shouldn't try to protect the slavs from the slavs and the russians demanding that nato pull out of their sphere. i'm looking for a long term strategic peace, which has to ultimately be voluntary. the russian demand is openly belligerent, and that's unusual for them, even if it sounds defensive in intent.
the russians may have some legitimate grievances in expecting nato to pull back, and, if i was at the table, i'd be advocating for it as...i'd have the poles up for sale. honestly.
but, they're also going to have to learn to live with the eu, and with the need to compete with that bloc for economic and military influence.
i'm not retracting any statements: poland will end up back in mother russia, and i have no interest in protecting it. but, it needs to be voluntary - at least eventually.
19:31
the russians should have figured out by now that the solution to their western border crisis (it is their western border) is diplomatic and economic, and not military.
the task before the russians is to pull these former satellites back into their economic and political and cultural sphere, not to find a way to invade them.
i think they know that; it's less clear why they're acting like they don't, except out of fear.
and, i think that's the right reading - the russians are spooked. they think something's coming. and, they might be right.
19:41
let me say this clearly: any sort of extended conflict between the united states and russia at this exact junction in history is guaranteeing a western defeat in the upcoming conflict against the chinese.
it would be suicidal.
that doesn't rule it out.
19:44
wednesday, december 22, 2021
while i have also made some minor changes to the first three of these, i've been forced to rewrite the fourth repeatedly, because it seems like it keeps changing:
the fifth seemed ok.
if i'm doing this, fine, let's do it - let's catch up on the alter-reality posts, first. i'm writing through the fall of 1989, here, and my experiences in the first half of grade 3, at a new school.
0:38
if i didn't mention it, i intended to plug in kim mitchell's rock 'n' roll duty for that week's track.
kim mitchell was initially the guitarist for a somewhat obscure weirdo canadiana act called max webster, but by the late 80s had became a homegrown canadian aor guitar hero, known mostly for his sort of tongue-in-cheek, post-modern take on guitar rock - very much in the wayne's world tradition, and there have been longstanding murmurs wondering if there's some connection. i was pretty young. maybe it was just a canadian thing, to not take rock music seriously, when so much of the rest of the world was absurdly absorbed in it. but, whatever the truth, kim mitchell became known for these idiosyncratically weird rock songs about writing rock songs, most of which sounded pretty much identical to each other.
as an adult, i recognize the rather vicious goethe reference:
q: what is this?
a: this is a rock song!
q: what am i?
a: we are rock and rockrolling!
q: where are we?
a: we are in rockland wonderland!
(those lyrics are actually for the follow-up single, not this one, but they're basically the same song. kim mitchell only has one song.)
it's all very silly, and very intentionally so - and it was massively popular in canada.
0:57
i'm getting more cryptic comments on this.
i've been quite explicit that i didn't start listening to what was called alternative rock until about 1993, or punk rock until after that. it takes some time to get there, too - there's going to be an evolution in taste, and i'm going to be thorough about it. 'cause this is about me, not you, and not them.
i turned 11 years old in january, 1992.
so, it's worth pointing out that i probably spent more time in 1991 listening to out of time than any other record and that i'd have nominated barenaked ladies' gordon as the record of the year in 1992, even ahead of automatic for the people.
....if you really need to know where my head was at.
1:29
what am i doing?
i decided to consolidate the review section before i got back to the writing, and, dammit...
why exactly does it seem like everything's being edited? i don't know, but i know i'm improving the final outcome by changing it back, even if i'm actually imagining it.
i've been over this before: if there's some unwanted editing going on here, the editor is going to immense lengths to (1) make it impossible to trace and prove and (2) insist that the edits revert.
it's the same general question of control.
and, i'm just not into it...
so, i've been rewriting parts of the reviews all day, unfortunately. they're better than they were when i found them, at least.
this space is not intended to be collaborative, and i can only express the most extreme forms of hostility possible towards anybody or anything that wants to interfere.
22:40
yeah - let's go ahead and post this here:
it's just the journal section, updated to yesterday's edits.
it seems like i'll have to read through it very carefully every week, unfortunately. i mean, what can i do? this is life, in a technological dystopia - and if we weren't that pre-covid, we sure are now.
nsa? cia? csis? rcmp? google? kgb? i don't know - really. i just know i constantly get that feeling that it's been altered.
my memory for words is not as powerful as my sense of compositional integrity. i type so much; i forget large amounts of it ten minutes later. it's stream of consciousness, a lot of it. but, these are more written blurbs, and i'm developing the need to remember more carefully. am i too old to get that skill?
if i'm right, what can i do?
i have no suggestions.
send me an email.
23:33
thursday, december 23, 2021
i would strongly suggest that retired doctors and nurses should not be vaccinating people.
rather, that sounds like something students should be given the opportunity to volunteer for.
12:59
does everybody in canada really know that ken dryden's a lawyer?
well, he actually took time off from his high profile hockey career to work as a law clerk. it's been remarked that his stats were somewhat inflated because he was on this canadian dynasty in the 70s that kept the puck in the other end of the rink all night, but his stats are nonetheless as good as one will find, in the history of hockey, so, if you followed hockey in the 70s - as all canadians alive did - then, yes, you knew that, because you knew the habs were without their star goalie, because he was off being a lawyer.
he was also the goalie in the summit series against russia, which is of extreme national importance, in canada.
i'm old enough to remember at least the memory of it - i didn't experience any of it first hand, but i heard stories about it, which indicates how important it was to canadians alive in the 80s and 90s that lived through the 70s. i suppose there's some chance that the claim is no longer true, but it would have probably still mostly held c. 2005 - and anybody questioning mr. dryden's legal capabilities would have no doubt been quickly corrected by the nearest adult.
the present fades into the past, though...
i'll also admit that i might be exaggerating, but only mildly. see, nana bought me science fiction books, but dad bought me hockey books. so, i actually read dryden's biography when i was very little, along with books by wayne gretzky, bobby orr and...i don't even remember. i think there was one by nolan ryan, too.
but, that aside, i'm sure that most kids my age would have recognized the name ken dryden as the magical summit series goalie, if not the habs' semi-recent star goalie, and mostly would have known he was a lawyer, too. it really is a part of the national mythos.
i'm not exactly excited about re-reading any of these biographies and probably won't, but we'll see.
13:44
the dryden text is sort of a classic, actually.
maybe.
13:46
so, i decided that i'm going to split these reviews off into standalone texts by author, as well. so, there will be a nice little two-three hundred page asimov text coming from this, and i'll keep the formatting.
so, i decided i wanted to create a new page on the side (under pages) for that to keep track of them:
...and, then i had to create one for the discography, too:
i'm still editing the asimov review pages. everything else aside, editing is a necessary process. i guess.
18:50
ok, i got that done.
i actually hope that it's useful.
i'm going to mirror it here, but i won't update this post further.
====
this is a shorthand text discography.
| inri # | human title | project name | type | dated to / written / material from | actual first release date | re-releases | date of last musical alteration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| inri000 | cassette demo #1 | inri | demo | 1996 | 1996 | 2013/2019 | 2013 |
| inri001 | cassette demo #2 | inri | demo | 1997 | 1997 | 2013/2019 | 2013 |
| inri002 lp000 | inricycled | inri | mix tape | 1997 | 2013 | 2020 | 2013 |
| inri003 | inrisampled | inri | ep | 1997 | 2013 | 2014/2019 | 1997 |
| inri004 | fuck the dead | inri | single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri005 | skaters | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri006 | useless | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri007 | confused | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri008 | hey, god | inri | single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri009 | i did your mom | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri010 | why | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri011 | nope | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri012 | i think i feel much better now | inri | single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri013 symph001 | on sexual confusion in adolescence | inri | hybrid double ep | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri014 | schizoid terrorist | inri | hybrid double ep single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri015 lp001 | inri | inri | lp | 1998 | 1998 | 2013/2016/ 2020 | 2016 |
| inri016 | eat my fuck | inri | ep | 1998 | 2013 | 2019 | 1998 |
| inri017 | the harsh truth is that only stupid people wish for happiness | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| ----- | the souls that create | various | compilation lp | 1998 | - | - | - |
| inri018 | circus | inri | ep-single | 1998 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri019 symph002 | teenage jesus | inri | hybrid double ep | 1999 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri020 | boogeyman | inri | ep-single | 1999 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri021 lp002 | inriched | inri | lp | 1999 | 1999 | 2013/2016/ 2020 | 2016 |
| inri022 | inrijected | inri | ep download | 1999 | 2013 | 2014/2016/ 2020 | 2016 |
| inri023 lp003 | inrimixed | inri | remix lp | 1999 | 2013 | 2014/2016/ 2020 | 1999 |
| inri024 lp004 | inriclaimed | inri | compilation lp | 1999 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri025 lp005 | inricited | inri | compilation lp | 1999 | 2016 | - | 2016 |
| inri026 | too cold | inri | ep single | 1999 | 2017 | - | 2017 |
| inri027 | gene-o's - a soundtrack for an italian brakfast cereal | inri | single | 1999 | 2013 | 2019 | 1999 |
| inri028 | pop music (a tribute to carbon dioxide) | inri | single | 1999 | 2013 | 2019 | 1999 |
| inri029 symph003 | warning | inri | ep | 1999 | 1999 | 2013/2017/ 2019 | 1999 |
| inri030 | war | inri | ep-single | 1999 | 2017 | - | 2017 |
| inri031 | liquify | inri | ep-single | 1999 | 2014 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri032 lp006 | inrimake | inri | covers lp | 1999 | 1999 | 2014 | 2014 |
| inri033 lp007 | inridiculous | inri | lp | 1999 | 1999 | 2014 | 1999 |
| inri034 | book it! | inri | single | 1999 | 2014 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri035 lp008 | ambient works vol 0 | inri | mix tape | 1999 | 2015 | - | 2015 |
| inri036 | let freedom ring | deny everything | ep-single | 2000 | 2014 | 2017 | 2000 |
| inri037 | the curious george suite | deny everything | ep | 2000 | 2014 | - | 2000 |
| inri038 | ignorance is bliss | deny everything | ep-single | 2000 | 2014 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri039 symph004 | acidosis | deny eveyrthing | ep | 2000 | 2014 | - | 2000 |
| inri040 | curious george | deny everything | single | 2000 | 2014 | 2017 | 2000 |
| inri041 lp009 | deny everything | deny everything | lp | 2000 | 2000 | 2004/2006/ 2010/2014 | 2014 |
| inri042 lp010 | inrimoved | deny everything | outtakes lp | 2000 | 2017 | n/a | 2017 |
| inri043 | stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides | jjjjjjjjj | double ep single | 2001 | 2014 | 2015/2017 | 2017 |
| inri044 | the time machine | jjjjjjjjj | ep-single | 2001 | 2014 | 2015/2017 | 2017 |
| inri045 | j's adventures in guitarland | jjjjjjjjj | ep | 2001 | 2010 | 2014 | 2001 |
| inri046 symph005 | the symphony of psilocybin induced madness | jjjjjjjjj | ep-single | 2001 | 2006 | 2014/2015 | 2015 |
| inri047 | the intersection of two identical particles moving in completely opposite directions | jjjjjjjjj | double ep single | 2001 | 2014 | 2015/2017 | 2017 |
| inri048 | to spin inside dull aberrations | the cynicide collaboration | ep-single | 2001 | 2014 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri049 | me, myself and the time i thought this was a good idea | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | ep-single | 2001 | 2014 | 2017 | 2015 |
| inri050 | existence | jjjjjjjjj | ep-single | 2001 | 2014 | 2015/2017 | 2014 |
| inri051 | give em hell harry / strung out | ftaa | ep | 2001 | 2014 | - | 2001 |
| inri052 lp011 | jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj | jjjjjjjjj | lp | 2001 | 2014 | - | 2014 |
| inri053 lp012 symph006 | the wave | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | lp | 2002 | 2014 | 2017 | 2002 |
| inri054 | clarity | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | ep-single | 2002 | 2014 | - | 2014 |
| inri055 | 9:46 outside the magenta box | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | ep-single | 2002 | 2014 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri056 | time | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | ep-single | 2002 | 2014 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri057 lp013 | rabit is wolf | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | demo lp | 2002 | 2002 | 2004/2006/ 2010/2014 | 2002 |
| inri058 symph007 | trepanation nation | ftaa | quadruple ep single | 2002 | 2014 | 2017/2018 | 2018 |
| inri059 | the imaginary tour demo | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | demo ep | 2002 | 2014 | - | 2014 |
| inri060 | atom's / taught to twist the affected so low | ftaa | ep | 2002 | 2014 | - | 2014 |
| inri061 | untitled | jjjjjjjjj | triple ep single | 2002 | 2015 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri062 | la la la la | rabit is wolf (w/ sean) | ep-single | 2002 | 2015 | - | 2015 |
| inri063 lp014 | jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj^2 | jjjjjjjjj | lp | 2002 | 2015 | - | 2015 |
| inri064 | flying | the trivial group | ep | 2003 | 2015 | - | 2003 |
| inri065 | refractions | the trivial group | ep-single | 2003 | 2015 | 2017 | 2015 |
| inri066 lp015 | electronic pieces in a primitive style | inri | compilation lp | 2003 | 2017 | - | 2015 |
| inri067 lp016 | spoke | ftaa | outtakes lp | 2003 | 2017 | - | 2002 |
| inri068 lp017 | period 2 update disc | jjjjjjjjj | compilation lp | 2003 | 2017 | - | 2017 |
| inri069 lp018 | tetris | jjjjjjjjj | quadruple lp compilation | 2003 | 2018 | - | 2018 |
| inri070 lp019 | thru | jjjjjjjjj | double lp compilation | 2003 | 2015 | - | 2015 |
| inri071 lp020 | ambient works, vol 1-2 | jjjjjjjjj | double lp compilation | 2003 | 2015 | 2017 | 2017 |
| inri072 lp021 | orchestral works, vol 1 | jjjjjjjjj | compilation lp | 2003 | 2015 | 2017/2018 | 2018 |
| inri073 lp022 | chamber works | jjjjjjjjj | compilation lp | 2003 | 2018 | - | 2018 |
| inri074 symph008 | reflections | the trivial group | ep | 2003 | 2003 | 2004/2015/ 2017 | 2017 |
| inri075 lp023 | akousmatic performance | the trivial group | live lp | 2003 | 2022 | - | ? |
| inri076 | all you need | the trivial group | ep | 2003 | 2022 | - | - |
| inri077 | bedroom cassette demos ep | the trivial group | demo ep | 2003 | 2021 | - | ? |
| inri078 symph009 | the lost symphony | the trivial group | ep-single | 2003 | 2022 | - | ? |
| inri079 lp024 | art show demo | the trivial group | alternate lp | 2004 | 2004 | 2019 | 2019 |
| inri080 | like divine amoebas | ftaa | ep-single | 2004 | 2021 | - | 2006 |
| inri081 lp025 | fuel true anarchy in the americas | ftaa | lp | 2004 | 2004 | 2021 | 2021 |
| inri082 lp026 | 2004 summer sampler lp | the trivial group | mix tape | 2004 | 2004 | ||
| inri083 | sandy hill updates lp | various | ep | 2004 | |||
| inri084 symph010 | the interplanetary isomorphism | the trivial group | ep | 2004 | |||
| inri085 | pre impressionist jazz punk | the trivial group | ep | 2004 | |||
| inri086 | the spontaneous combustion of leonardo pisano | cycles/ second | ep | 2004 | 2004 | 2019 | 2004 |
| inri087 symph011 | xenophanes | the trivial group | ep single | 2004 | |||
| inri088 | {e} | the trivial group | 2xlp | 2004 | |||
| inri089 | cycles per second | cycles/ second | lp | 2005 | |||
| inri090 | fragment to be completed | the trivial group | ep | 2005 | |||
| inri091 | impressionist jazz punk | the trivial group | lp | 2005 | 2005 | 2019 | 2005 |
| inri092 | stranded noise guitar demos | the trivial group | ep | 2005 | |||
| inri093 | scholastic pieces | jjjjjjjjj | ep | 2006 | |||
| inri094 | demos | proverbs | ep | 2006 | |||
| inri095 | the crash | tetris | lp | 2006 | |||
| inrixxx | genesis | 2007 | |||||
| inrixxx | percussive works | 2007 | |||||
| inrixxx | shitzy guitar jam | 2008 | |||||
| inrixxx | proverbs | 2009 | |||||
| inrixxx | evil is a human construction | 2010 | |||||
| inrixxx | grunge song #31415 | 2010 | |||||
| inrixxx | orb symphony | 2011 | |||||
| marion street demos | 2014 |
21:36
so, i seem to be at omicron ground zero, right now.
we have vaccination rates as high as anywhere else in the world. it's just ridiculously contagious.
i'm not that worried about; i think i caught something last week, and i barely noticed. but, i don't have any plans to leave the house for a few more days, at least.
it's hardly been cold, but hopefully it warms up enough for some biking by early january. i don't have anywhere to go before then...
21:44
i hear it's a nice day in capetown, though.
the virus is seasonal.
like, get it.
21:45
friday, december 24, 2021
if you're curious, the actual major influence in terms of how i've ordered my discography is dwayne goettel, and his endless alter-egos:
0:41
so, what's going on with the russians? they seem to be huffing and puffing....
no: i think they're spooked.
they've got these new weapons, which they seem to think give them tactical superiority for the first time in decades and seem to be posturing that they're going to take control as a result of it, but if you listen to what they're saying, what they're really concerned about is the longstanding missile shield in the baltic. the russians have been in a crisis point regarding this for many years now, in that they've been dealing with an inability to respond to a first strike. the americans claim that their missiles in the baltic sea are to protect europe from iran, but everybody that understand the situation knows that this is an offensive weapons system set up on moscow's doorstep.
if the russians are right that their new missiles turn the tables, then the americans have a limited amount of time to stop them from doing it. that seems to be why they're scared: they know the americans need to act now or not at all.
and, see, this is the unfolding of the situation that smart observers warned about, as the americans failed to learn the lessons of the treaty of versailles, after 1989. there was a time when the russians legitimately seemed interested in peace, and all the americans did was salt the wound. now, we have a humiliated russia that wants to prove itself. and, that's a problem, because this is a country that has every possible strategic advantage going for it - we don't want the russians emerging from hibernation, hungry, and seeking prey. but, that's what we created, through our own belligerence.
so, now what?
i don't think the russians want to strike, but they are insistent that a new power differential be respected. they demand that america behave logically and face the new facts, as they are - and as they once did. ok. but, they're afraid they won't - they're afraid they'll irrationally attack, instead.
see, the russian military has long been convinced that the americans are not rational actors. you have to get your head around what happened at the end of the traditional cold war (1945-1991), in terms of both sides resorting to the use of game theory. there was a time in the 70s where there really was a minimal actual threat of war, due to mutual assumption of rationality, stemming from the certainty of mutually assured destruction. that might have carried on for many decades, but reagan stepped in and collapsed it - he asserted himself as irrational, as a gun-slinging cowboy that refused to listen to the mathematicians. and, the russians crumbled in response.
since then, they've been absolutely petrified. until now, apparently - because they seem to think they have the technological advantage, and they seem to want to use it, too.
so, are we back to the kind of brinkmanship we saw during the 40s and 50s? i don't know. i don't know if the russian analysis is accurate, and i don't know if they're going to get their systems in place, and be able to use them as the leverage they want to use them as. and, i don't know how the rest of the world will react to a return to militarism, or if they'll accept the inevitability of it. i don't know if economic sanctions may be more powerful, or who might hold to them. and, i don't know what the russian priorities are - although they seem to be broadcasting that their western flank is of the utmost importance, which everybody that understands russia knows is a perpetual fact.
i don't want to get bombed. that's my primary concern.
so, the pentagon's gotta act quickly. ok? you guys need to analyze these new russian systems. do they change the balance of power? then accept it, and make a rational withdrawal. do they not? then calm the russians down, and ensure them that you're not going to attack.
we can't have a scared russia making reflexive mistakes, even if they're traditionally the more rational actor.
and, if there's nobody in the pentagon that remembers how to do this, then call some people that do.
21:41
saturday, december 25, 2021
so, this has been a very painful process, that has required me to read and re-read and correct and sometimes recorrect these posts, but i have a short version to post here:
this has turned out to be time consuming, and i wish i was further ahead, but this is clearly required. what i can say is this: either my initial notes required me to edit them rather substantively (which is not usually the case.) or whomever the fucking idiot is that is editing this requires an editor, themselves.
i don't know if that will stay stable.
if it doesn't, i'll have to fix it again.
for now, note that i'm uploading the specific file, rather than the appendix. i'll upload the appendix eventually as one file when the journal fills in more.
so, that was a wasted week, but it's necessary. so be it.
i'm going to keep at it until i get through it.
4:25
4:32
i'm just retracing my steps, it seems.
does it really keep changing or do i keep finding points to edit? every time i check my notes, it suggests that i'm editing and re-editing, and it's not changing, but it's not sitting well with me.
i gotta fix it. this is a shitty use of my time, but whatever.
it's now updated here, and i have to be clear: the reviews posted here are not final until they're updated to this pdf document and, even so, i might change them.
i have some ideas regarding what's going on. i wonder if somebody else wants to pretend they're me, which is just utterly pathetic, but i think it's happening, nonetheless. i wonder if the book publisher wants to edit the material, and i have to interject - this is not a wikipedia article. you have no grounds to edit a review, that's ridiculous. this is my intellectual property, not yours. and, i wonder even if whoever is spying on me isn't obsessed enough with their conspiracy theories that they think they're countering propaganda.
i'm writing a fucking book, you inbred retards. and, almost nobody is going to read it. ugh.
it's a very frustrating feeling to be convinced that your writing keeps changing, and not be able to prove it. it's disorienting. but, it's also incredibly upsetting.
it's for that reason that i have to just keep plugging at it, because i have to make the same decision, in the case of either possibility. if i just keep missing edits, i have to fix it because it needs editing, clearly; if the writing keeps getting edited by somebody else, i feel a moral responsibility to push against it as hard as i can.
but, i get the impression that this could go on for a while.
this is a recent update, with many minor punctuation changes (punctuation i don't use keeps appearing), some replaced words (words i never use keep appearing) and a re-ordering of the two pre-foundation pieces, as the context is clearer if i place the imaginary before the hazing (even though the order of publication is reversed).
23:30
sunday, december 26 2021
ok, this finally seems relatively stable.
again - i don't know if it keeps changing, or i keep changing my mind, or perhaps even both. i've got examples of things i'm sure aren't what i typed, and examples where i caught myself and said "no, i wasn't clear.".
i have about a hundred more pages that are already written to update in this document. i was hoping it would be fast (the story of my fucking life...), but this is going to be painful if it takes me a week to get through five pages.
nonetheless, i'm going to try to move to the next section.
18:20
if you were paying attention, this should have been obvious.
the policies brought in were often incoherent, except as an excuse to spy on people.
21:00
if washington, via london, and via paris before it, is the heir to rome, then moscow is the heir to constantinople.
the russians are not merely an empire; the russians are the empire.
and, i wish we'd spend more time trying to get along with them, because they are fundamentally a western society with fundamentally western values, if perhaps time-shifted somewhat. we have a shared heritage with the russians; we don't have one with the chinese.
the russians are as threatened - perhaps more so - by chinese expansion as we are. russia remembers it's period of mongolian domination with bitterness; that is never going to resolve. it is the foundation of russia, itself - it's historical identity. and it's basis for eastern expansion. we have a shared interest, here.
i don't know why this propaganda piece showed up in the hill of a sudden, but it seems to be broadcasting something.
it makes no tactical sense for us to fight the russians. it's self-defeating; it's not in our interests.
21:43
monday, december 27, 2021
i thought i quickly updated the first two sections of the complete robot and tried to upload it last night, only to have to retrace my steps for the first section, yet again.
so, i've had to rewrite a few reviews, and change a number of words.
i can't prove they're changing, but i feel like they're changing. it's very strange, but i'll keep updating the posts, so long as i feel they can be improved by doing so. as stated, the logic is the same, either way.
21:10
tuesday, december 28, 2021
ok, so i'm working on two indices. it doesn't make sense to add either until the end.
that will fill out. it will be comprehensive,including the novels.
the first is just a list of stories:
the second is an indice of concepts, to keep track of all the things i'm rambling about in the reviews:
i should be back to updating the document soon...
0:31
i'm going to post this to archive it. it doesn't make sense to print it until the end, but i'll try to keep up.
posting the other is pointless.
index 2: concepts
| 30s culture 60s counterculture allegory arabs automation bezos, jeff bohr, niels callisto canals on mars china climate change corporatism covid-19 democracy descartes, rene division of labour dna einstein, albert elitism europe evolution exponential growth federation floating point error free market freud, sigmund gates, bill genome greeks hamming codes ibm icke, david imperialism india industrial revolution irony japan jefferson, thomas jung, carl killer whales king, stephen kramer, cosmos lacan, jacques luddites, luddism, ludditism magnetism mars marx, karl mathematical psychology maxwell, james mechanization misanthropy moon moore's law (moore, gordon) multivac musk, elon nationalism neo-liberalism nuclear war nuremberg trials obsolescence peer review persians pink floyd probability psychohistory quantum computers quantum physics racism religion robots russia satire sentience slavery smartphones socialism statistics steinbeck, john sun surveillance state theodosian walls theory of art time travel turks united states venus victorian england world war two yellowstone park (yogi bear) zionism | 1, 2 1 2 6 3, 8 1 2 2 3 1 1, 3-4 2 3-4 3 1, 6, 9 2-3, 5 2 2 3 1, 6-7 2, 5-6 1 2, 4-5 9 1 5 9 2 3, 6-7 9 9 3 3, 6-7 1, 3-4 6-7 5-6, 8-9 1 2 5 8 8 7 5 1, 3 2 2, 3 3 4-5 2 3, 8 2, 7 1 1 9 1 3-4 1 3, 5-7 5 8 3, 6-7 3, 6-7 1 4-5 4-5 9 4-5 2, 5, 8-9 1, 3-7 3, 5, 7-30 1, 3-7 3-5 8-9 1, 2 2, 8-9 3-6 4-5 3 2 3-4 6-7 2 6-7 6 1, 2, 5-7 1, 2 6-7 2, 3 6 2 |
5:19
no, i think that if you're going to pass a law that restricts the rights of millions of people then some reasonable retribution is called for, in terms of doxxing and activism and humiliation. i think that this is justice working itself out. so, i stand with the twitter social justice warrior army, which is what this is, on this one.
perhaps the individual should have thought of the consequences of her actions, beforehand.
i think that this reassertion of the power of democracy over the power of the state is long overdue.
if these tinpot dictators, these petite bourgeois fascists, in the health departments want to restrict people's liberties, and they want to do it while hiding behind state power, there should be consequences for their actions, in terms of political activists rising up and holding them accountable for it.
taking away people's rights is a serious thing, and not something anybody should be trying to protect. we are the victims here - the state is the criminal.
17:30
i'm going to call on mr. mendecino to immediately resign his seat and return to private life. for a minister to ask a private foreign company to institute an extralegal process to restrict a constitutional right is such an egregious abuse of power, and makes such a mockery of the rule of law, that he can no longer hold any authority in his position, whatsoever.
a mistake in judgement of this sort is too egregious to look the other way from.
resign immediately, mr. mendecino.
18:22
there's a longstanding problem in our society where bureaucrats and administrators (both in the public and private sector) have been able to make decisions that affect thousands or millions of people, and then successfully evade any sort of responsibility for their actions, by hiding behind the aegis of state or corporate power.
i'm in support of anything that upends and dismantles that.
now, if this decadent bureaucrat wants to whine that she has had her itty witty feewings hurt by the mean tweet, she should have a legal process before her to determine if she's under any threat of harm or not. and, she'll have to deal with the obvious outcome - she's not. but, the issue should be before a judge, and not left up to twitter.
i agree with twitter's decision, but the greater problem here is that twitter is arbitrating the concern. there should be a legal process here, instead.
and, we need to address a property rights issue before we can get there.
what the minister has done, though, is beyond the pale. he has no business interfering in this concern, and should be removed from his post, if he doesn't have the presence of mind and good sense to resign for an obvious abuse of power that makes a mockery of his position and his ministry.
18:44
this government is a fascist catastrophe.
the idiot prime minister will probably just repeat the abuse of power.
we get the government we deserve, canada,
20:06
is this legislation banning interfering with health care workers some kind of threat to free speech?
well, if you interpret it the way this minister did, it might be. but, that's ridiculous - that wouldn't hold up in any court. it's at best a political position; it's not a legal one.
there could be some hiccups. in the end, i would expect the court to essentially ignore the health care worker clause and assert that free speech is free speech and assault is assault - and trespassing is trespassing. so, it's more like an example of the worst kind of unnecessary, politicized legislation that didn't need to get written and will probably never get used.
the government seems to want to shut down twitter, though, and i wonder if they're not expressing confidence in the use of their own apps. why rely on twitter to spy on people when you can track their movements, instead? it's far more useful. you get the hard data you need, without the threat of democracy developing.
i would consider the threat to speech rights in canada right now to be medium, which is higher than it's ever been, but our constitutional protections here are not unsubstantial, and it may take this government more time to do what they want than they have left.
i would suggest that speech advocates be on high alert and very vigilant.
20:13
so, as always happens with me and writing projects, what i wanted to be a short process has turned into a time consuming mess.
i have to finish what i've started. that's not optional.
but, there's an upside to it - i've been using the usb ports on the recording pc to transfer files back and forth (it's the production machine. it's where i'm typesetting.) and i haven't had any problems, yet. i've noticed some chokes that seem to be related to the video card, but i don't have drivers installed, and it's hard to tell if it's:
a) just what happens when you use generic xp video drivers. i guess this is probably an old problem now, but the generic xp video drivers were awful - you had to install a driver package or you'd get choppiness in scrolling and difficulties refreshing. but, the thing is that it seems to almost freeze at the same kind of points it was freezing at before, without the drivers installed. it's curious, but i think the balance of probabilities is that this is coincidental.
b) actually suggestive that the drivers are the problem, or
c) suggestive of an underlying hardware problem, either with the video card or with the slot on the board. i did swap slots a while back.
so, i'm changing this up a little.
it's the end of tuesday. i'm going to get as much of this done as i can before the weekend, and see if i can just do some music on saturday. i didn't want to do that, but i just keep falling into these time-wasting, cyclical traps that i can't get out of. i have to just do it.
if i can get audiomulch - which is the tool i'll be using to finish inri076 - to run on the m-audio card, that's some clues as to the stability of the underlying system.
i may have to remaster it later, but at least it's a step forwards. and, i have to do this very, very slowly because every time i think i've got it - ram, big drives, os, etc. - it reverts back to the underlying problem, that i can't figure out.
i haven't been outside since the 17th and right now don't expect to be out again until the first week of january. i'm taking d pills to counteract the lack of sunlight. and, i just want to get done what i'm doing and move on to the next thing.
20:38
just a reminder.
inri075 is a live acoustic album that i want to mostly redo entirely. i want to fix the takeharu guitar first, and i need access to the alesis, at least, even if i don't use cubase - and i suppose i wouldn't need to, as it's one track. i bought a marantz condenser mic for this purpose.
inri076 is almost done, but i want to add an experimental noise piece to the front of it:
inr077 was recently digitized. i need to rebuild it in cubase.
inri078 needs to be rebuilt from scratch, in cubase:
inri079 is musically complete:
inri080 is musically complete:
inri081 is musically complete:
i wanted all of the data on my drive properly organized before i started on this, and i'll have to do that eventually, but i only have so much time...
21:30
and, just tersely: is there some potential influence from edward bernays on asimov? is there a gramscian slant to this?
i'll be honest: it was a long time ago.
i'll look for it. it might be there. but, i'm not committing to it.
22:48
i mean, it's going to be similar to the eugenics slant, if it's there - i don't expect asimov to align with bernays.
but, i've already pointed out that asimov's concept of psychohistory is largely a sardonic joke about the usefulness of applied psychology, and there is some possibility that he may end up elaborating it into a satire of gramscianism, or a criticism of the approaches taken by bernays.
asimov was an elitist in a vague sense, but he was a liberal. he believed in democracy, and there's a very clear criticism of aristocracy and bureaucracy throughout his work. i'm not certain that this slant is going to be there at all, but if it is, i would expect it to be critical.
like marx, asimov might find himself frustrated with the inability of workers to understand what is in their best interests, but he is ultimately concerned about their interests, and not about the interests of the elite.
we'll see what comes up.
22:54
asimov was, first and foremost, a satirical author. i know that's not well understood, and it may be understood the least by his audience, or at least the part of it that's not dead yet. he was the last of the old guard, in that sense; wells and verne were also both, primarily, satirists. his writing is pretty much always more political than technical and almost never has exaggerated action scenes, making it very different than most of what is nowadays imagined as science fiction.
they're political satires set in outer space.
so, if it's there, it's going to be sardonic - as everything he wrote was sardonic.
i remember the broad outline of the foundation series, but it wasn't as heavy-handed as the robot series (which i realized even at the time was a marxist allegory, even if i couldn't articulate it) and i don't expect i got the tone right.
22:59
it's probably better to get kids to reach in their reading than to keep them juvenile, and give them books below their reading level.
but, i'm not the first person to point out that i didn't understand much of what i read at that age, be it asimov or whatever else. and, i could hardly have been honestly expected to.
everybody's gotta learn, somehow. right? a lot of kids learn to read with asimov, only to realize they didn't actually understand what they were reading, after all. at all.
23:19
wednesday, december 29, 2021
so, i've collected a few extra asimov posts and pulled them into a preface. i didn't realize what i was doing, at the time...
2:33
i've got more done that it seems, because i got those indices started. they're not posted.
this now has fairly stable versions of the first two and a half sections of the complete robot, as well as an added five page preface. i'll be double checking that tonight, and hope to get a new version with the rest of the third section of the complete robot up soon.
2:44
i'm missing a post from august, so i've rewritten it into the one that's still there. i vaguely recall rewriting it, but i feel like something was removed.
i've tried to reconstruct as many of the ideas from the missing post as i can.
the preface is appropriately updated:
8:38
thursday, december 30, 2021
there's a collection of expected reactions to this - the hypocritical outrage from conservatives (who would do the same thing to any evil communists) on one side and the "well, she's obviously a spy" apologism from authoritarian leftists on the other side. there's some level of truth to all of it. i mean, she obviously is a spy.
i have to insist that this isn't an ideological thing, and you're missing the point if you insist that it is; it's more of a cultural thing. and, you have to get your head around it.
my first reaction was that this is stupid; the canadian government couldn't ask for better propaganda. what are they thinking? however, that's not the right reaction because chinese culture has no history of free media. virtually everybody in the west - from the far left to the far right - will condemn this as tyrannical, but the chinese are just going to laugh at us for it. in their mind, we're irrational fools for letting dissent fester rather than stamping it out.
it's not like that mindset doesn't have it's own history here, but it's long been the minority view. you'd have to go back to roman times for it to be the dominant view in the west, for the reason that the uprisings against rome were always so focused on their abuses of power. since then, when that mentality appears here - via bad kings, fascists and popes - it is resisted. and, they always lose.
that's just crazy talk, in china, where the state has always been supreme and dissent has always been crushed.
at the end of the day, this is a minor concern. of course, everybody hopes that the situation resolves itself, but there's no surprises here - everybody knew this was coming, and those who stayed in the country and flaunted the laws put their own safety at risk. anybody feigning shock and outrage is milking the drama.
but, we have to get the message.
we have to understand the nature of the chinese as an alien culture and what their values are - and are not.
11:11
i'm going to hold off on the update for a bit, but i'm feeling stable, and moving forwards, again. finally.
it's coming together.
11:12
you're not going to browbeat the chinese - they're going to look us in the eye and call us buffoons.
11:16
you know, i've been pointing out for years now that covid is really more like a cold than a flu.
with 30% positivity rates, it is starting to look more like this is the new dominant cold virus, rather than the new flu.
you kids might catch this disease 30-40 times in their lives.
11:48
is the history of press freedom in the west that deep?
well, you'll see people that want to derive it from the printing press, but that's a political theory, not a historical one. the reformation was about press freedom, in the terms it was understood. the renaissance - which was a struggle for the right to publish facts - was about press freedom. and, the barbarian armies that crossed the rhine in the 5th century were fundamentally seeking the right to be free.
this idea is embedded within our cultural memory, which is defined by a struggle against rome, against christianity and against autocracy.
none of that exists in china - it's just a naive fairy tale, to them.
19:46
as a math major that's frequently frustrated by the illogical behaviour of court staff (i haven't posted that story here, yet. i'm going to wait. patience.), i should comment on this.
i should start by pointing out that randall denley is a known common-sense revolution type idiot. you don't expect much from him, and he's predictably delivered, yet again.
the court is basically right, in the sense that firing teachers for failing a math test, when they weren't given enough math instruction, isn't helpful. if we acknowledge that there's a problem with the basic state of technical knowledge of teachers in this society, we have to ask the question of who is at blame for it, and it doesn't make sense to blame the teachers. if the student group is suggesting that it's just an excuse to fire non-white teachers, they might be on to something.
generally, if a unionized worker needs help learning to do something, you don't fire them, you send them to training. that's a broad rule that has nothing to do with race and nothing to do with teachers. so, why exactly is the government insisting on firing them instead of retraining them?
but, that's not the root cause of the problem. the root cause of the problem is the entrance requirements at the teacher's college. teacher's college isn't the right place to teach teachers math, either - they should be required to pass those tests as a part of the admittance process. i might add that they should increase general science requirements, as well.
the problem before us is that we have too many english majors teaching kids math and science, and the root cause of the problem is the institutions producing the teachers.
there's an old saying that common sense isn't that common, but i might actually wish it was less common. it's a sort of misnomer - it should be called something more like colloquial nonsense. denley is deploying the term to argue against a well-reasoned logical argument that tries to balance the empirical facts with the common good, which is how conservatives tend to utilize it - they want to replace logic with (often time flawed) perceptions and (generally ignorant) assumptions, then they call those flawed perceptions and ignorant assumptions "common sense". it's a euphemism for the worst kind of anti-intellectualism. and, denley is more guilty than most, in this piece.
the government should take the point and shift the testing to entrance requirements, instead. if the schools accept arts students as candidates, and then graduate them without ensuring they're able to teach basic knowledge to students, the graduates themselves can't be faulted for the incompetency of the school in graduating them - they shouldn't have been accepted in the first place.
21:35
really, you'd think that a grade 10 proficiency test should have been something dealt with at the undergraduate admissions process.
i don't have a problem telling somebody that they can't study english literature if they can't get 70% in grade ten math.
22:02
friday, december 31, 2021
i just want to comment on trudeau's recent ignorant and prejudiced comments about unvaccinated people, in the context of quebec's secularism laws.
what's basically coming out here is that trudeau is surrounded by stupid english majors that think the secularist opposition to religion in society is reducible to some kind of bullshit freudian fear of the unknown, and that fear of muslims can essentially be replaced with fear of the unvaccinated, because it's just a bunch of ignorance in the first place.
the fact that it's factually true that islam is racist and misogynist, and that it's factually false that opposition to vaccination has any of those characteristics (or that there's any remote linkage between the concepts), doesn't matter in a post-truth reality. truth has no relevance in trudeau's world. it's all just post-modernist imagery. it's all just psychological projection and freudian pseudoscience.
so, it makes sense for them to think they can substitute legitimate opposition to religion in society with statist-generated fear of the unvaccinated, because they don't remotely understand either thing, because they're trying to deconstruct it using freudian pseudoscience, like you'd expect a stupid english major to.
what i'm more concerned about is that it exposes a continuing trend in the liberal party away from science as an actual real thing (despite the cynical deployment of it, in ways that are often in direct opposition to it - and let me say it's a good thing that this is a provincial responsibility right now, because you don't want english majors running the health ministries from the back of the interpretation of dreams) and towards the embrace of the religious right. however you want to deconstruct this nonsense, and however laughable and foolish it is, it's nonetheless broadcasting that the party intends to align with the religious right, and intends to do away with any conception of liberalism it still holds to.
i don't expect this substitution to go anywhere. it's just typical buffoonery from a party of abject buffoons.
but, the intent is clear enough.
and, it should be interpreted with the sinister character that it truly has - this is a government that wants to embrace right-wing religion as a governing policy, and is seeking for a scapegoat to allow it to do so.
3:13
i've said several times now that those that are concerned about the extreme right wing in canada should identify the liberal party - and justin trudeau in particular - as the primary threat.
this is a party veering off into right field, and that poses a serious threat to the stability of the country.
3:19
my fear of islam is rationally deduced from it's ideology, which i am diametrically opposed to. islam poses me a real, measurable threat of harm.
the unvaccinated pose me no threat of harm at all.
i expect most people will be able to figure that out. but, expect the state to try to confuse you.
something to watch for in the upcoming year is whether we're at a breaking point on mask use or not - and how far the state goes to enforce it.
3:33
i spent last night mostly double checking items, making sure everything was stable and updating the indices.
this morning, i've got it updated to the end of section III.
this is a slow and tedious process because i'm rewriting a lot of it and, whatever the cause, it's required.
5:17
i wanted to get out very early this morning to get some groceries, but i just crashed exceedingly hard not long before i wanted to go, and slept until around 20:00. i dunno. i'm awake now.
as mentioned, i want to give my sound card a try, given that the production machine seems mostly stable. so, i'm going to close a few thoughts with the asimov and get to that overnight.
i don't generally go anywhere on the 31st, and i don't care much for the holiday. it's basically a calendar error - the celebration is the solstice, and they got the day wrong. it's empty, meaningless, pomp. but, be extra careful about drunks on the road tonight...
21:50
the question of whether vaccination status is an analogous ground remains blurry, and we ultimately need direction from the court, but it's not even that the government doesn't care. the government is trying to create an underclass, and wants to discriminate against them. it's a fascist government, and this is what fascist governments do - they look for a minority group to attack.
as per usual, it's not very well thought through. but, it's all clear enough.
so, if they want to treat "the unvaccinated" as though they're an underclass, the court is going to have to step in and assert analogous grounds.
22:23
there is no logical policy reason for that decision - it's just base discrimination.
22:26
you can generally expect me to stand with the marginalized, although i might argue with you about who is marginalized and who is not.
if the state wants to marginalize people based on their personal health decisions, i will stand with them. and, we'll win.
22:53
i just want to extrapolate on a point, because most of the popular science articles i've been sorting through over the last day (i google things as i'm writing, partly out of curiosity as to what comes up) are sort of missing the point.
why is there no correlation between intelligence and race? why does race not exist, scientifically?
there have been periodic studies done that suggest the opposite, but they don't hold up to much scrutiny. i remarked that the jews tend to be pretty smart, which is an offhand comment and not a rigorous claim; in fact, when you look at the issue more closely, jews don't have higher levels of intelligence than anybody else, even if they have repeatedly disproportionately produced the most intelligent people for many centuries. there's a difference between claiming that a group has a higher average intelligence level (which i didn't say, and which isn't true) and saying that a group tends to produce exceptional individuals (which i did say, and which is true). i'll hold to the claim that no intelligent eugenicist would advocate the final solution; it's contrary to their stated goals. there was a widely debunked paper by steven pinker, who is revered by fake scientist pop culture icons on the right but widely seen as a hack by real scientists, that went over the claim that jews are the master race, which i do refer to curtly, as an ironic joke. no, i don't really think the jews are the master race, but it would be a fun position to take in a piss-taking debate with an actual nazi.
likewise, studies that blacks have lower iqs don't hold up to much scrutiny. i'm not talking about cultural differences, either. when you simply adjust for controls - when you test poor whites against poor blacks, for example - the differences entirely disappear. the explanation seems to have less to do with culture and more to do with nutrition.
there are other claims, that have to do with placing certain developments in a certain spatial-temporal sense and deducing things about the genome, but there's not a lot of point in taking those on directly, either. some people even want to claim we stopped evolving! hrmmn. fancy that.
the actual reason race doesn't make any sense is because we misunderstood the amount of gene flow in the old world. we assumed that we had three distinct populations - europeans, asians and africans - at the minimum, and maybe some level of gene flow in between, by looking at physical differences. today, we know that that was completely wrong, that there has never been a discernible amount of genetic isolation anywhere in the old world. maybe we should have been able to guess that by a closer reading of history. do you know how many descendants, scattered across various landmasses, genghis khan is said to have had? the mongols raped and slaughtered, but they were in a tradition of rape and slaughter; the arabs raped and slaughtered, the romans raped and slaughtered, etc. we've had such dramatic gene flow over the course of our collective history, since leaving africa, that we haven't seen distinct populations develop.
it's not like the theory is wrong - isolated humans will evolve into distinct species. sure. we've found a half dozen, scattered across various ocean islands. the andaman island humans seem to be a little different, and the australian aboriginees may have been the closest to speciation (with indigenous americans being a distant second). but, even the indigenous americans had gene flow over the arctic, with the inuit arriving a little later, and even going back to siberia. i mean, the inuit actually discovered america, right? they weren't totally isolated. the australians may have been nearly isolated...
but, in the terms of what we generally mean when we talk about population isolation, we've learned that that was a misperception - that genes flowed back into africa from the north, and kept coming out of africa as well, at a rate that ensured a single human population, rather than a collection of subpopulations.
everything else aside, the primary reason that scientific racism is necessarily wrong is that you can't define the population groups because the gene flow between them was far too great to allow for any measurable isolation in the first place. with the possible exception of the australians aside, we're really all one big population, and have been for 200,000 years.
23:35