it was second down. he catches the ball, the game is over. he drops the ball, the clock stops. it didn't work out. but here's the thing, and deion knows it: that call wasn't spontaneous. they have a goal line offense. they've been practicing it for months. it was already set.
go track down videos of teams with the ball inside the five on first or
second down. what you're going to see is that something like 80% of the
teams throw the ball on first or second down. third, fourth? you're
going to see that 90%+ run the ball on both downs.
it's easy to attack the call as stupid. but it's really pretty common.
Glachs +deathtokoalas nah if you have the top 5 RB and your on the 1yard line you run it in, they werent on the 5yrd line, they were on the 1, just had to give to Lynch or do a QB fake and take it in yourself, if you don't get it you can clock it or call a TO
deathtokoalas +Glachs they were at about the five yard line on first down, which clicked in their goal line offense. they ran a running play on first down that got them a few yards. so, it's second down. the whole world expects you to push the line. that's not a lynch issue, it's a line issue. and, of course, a lynch can't get the yards he gets without being behind a strong line. but it's a different issue. it's not about lynch's talent level, it's about who has more muscle up front. you've got three chances at this, but if you get fucked on a strong blitz and lose yards then the whole calculus changes.
so, you're going to see a lot of teams run a little pass route in this circumstance, to try and catch the secondary on a blitz. the intended play was probably on the wide side, and meant to catch the safety out of position. but (and it might be because the passing play was actually so predictable), the defense didn't buy it. i'll agree with deion that the ball was questionably thrown, but you can't throw the ball into the crowd when you've got solid coverage anymore. the clock was ticking, he had to let the ball go.
if he catches the ball, the game is basically over. well, i guess the patriots can try and run it back. and, note that ticking a few seconds off the clock is a good reason to run the passing play on second down, too.
if he drops the ball, you ideally get two chances to push through the line.
it wasn't a bad call at all...it was mostly just good coverage.
i think, in that situation, you want to make sure you're throwing the ball deep into the end zone, so that an interception would create a safety.
yeah, but then you sent a bunch of nutcases and kooks to ransack the country side so you could boot the guy that wouldn't sign the sofa and send the forces in that you didn't want sent home in the first place. would you like to talk about that or would you prefer these "right-wing talking points"? yeah, that's what i thought. it's theatre, people...
i feel this is the best place to post this...
if i actually end up killing myself over the next few weeks, please note the following requests/instructions.
- NO RELIGIOUS CEREMONY. this is extremely important to me. no superstitions in disguise, either. the best way to ensure that you avoid all religion is to just not have a ceremony at all.
- so, no ceremony at all, please.
- i do not want a gravestone or any other physical memorial.
- i don't care what happens to my belongings.
- i would prefer to be composted. if this is not possible, or too expensive, then cremation is the second best option. if it's cheaper to just toss me on some logs, and cook some marshmellows on me then i'd prefer that option; there's no use in supporting the cemetary-industrial complex. no, seriously, just find a cheap way to burn me, i don't give a fuck as long as there's no markings...
- i don't want to be left in an urn or something. not because i particularly care about what happens to the ashes, but because i want all physical memory of me to be abolished.
- i would request that my internet presence not be disturbed. should it look like suicide is imminent, i will contact somebody regarding this.
============
these are all longterm goals, anyways. i suppose it's useful that they exist somewhere.
it's easy to understand why i don't really care about the details. the key points are:
(1) no religion
(2) no physical place of remembrance
(3) i would like to be recycled as effectively as is cost-efficient.
(4) my online presence must remain undisturbed.
it's true.
he's the most right-wing american president since jfk.
Lord Voldemort
Looks fake,there are no frozen fish,and also if sun is shining on that ice so hard that we can see stones under it,why didnt it melt ,and why is there no sound of mountain wind ?
deathtokoalas
the lack of fish can be explained by the fact that slovakia is directly in the dead zone caused by german (and russian) industrialization. clear lakes like this are a common result of acidification caused by acid rain.
Remo Drake
There are no fish in lakes that high.
deathtokoalas
as a broad statement, that's just simply not true, although i have to admit that i'm not aware of the exact level of biodiversity in the slovakian mountains. while you may see specific adaptations or localized populations in specific areas, it is broadly true to state that some type of fish or another can survive at just about any altitude.
Shekinah
The ice in the video is an example of congelation ice, which is also known as black ice because of an ability to see through to the color of the water underneath. The congelation ice forms underneath an existing layer of ice, building off of the bottom. When the top layer is melted, the crystal-clear layer is revealed. The incredible clarity of the ice is a result of freezing with no air bubbles, snow, and impurities present. When impurities or air bubbles are trapped in ice, it causes the light to scatter as it travels through and results in a cloudy appearance.
deathtokoalas
i think you're half right - the explanation of the mechanism is correct, but i don't think these conditions can be observed nearly as dramatically in a normal, healthy lake.
Pink Guy
The water isn't tainted as well, and it looks like the water is completely frozen through, making it clear. You can tell because of the refraction of light, if there was water underneath, the light would change it's course through water, ice and oxygen.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
i think what i'm reacting to is the misperception that the world is "clean" unless humans touch it. that perception is going to create the idea that water in untainted sources is crystal clear. but, in fact the opposite is true - the natural world is a very dirty place, partially because it is full of life. it only becomes "clean" when we modify it.
water running through a stream is getting filtered, but "untainted" lake water is generally pretty dirty. sulfuric acid , however, is a pretty strong cleanser. that's why dead lakes are so clean looking.
MGK
What do u have got with that "healthy lake" "Czechoslovakia" and "acid rain" ?
That lake isn´t healthy because it's +-2000 meters above sea level then there aren´t fish, plants and who knows what else. Czechoslovakia doesn´t exist since 1993 (now is Czech republic or Slovakia/Slovak republic), and that acid rain....I don´t think so that we have got acid rain in High Tatras. and from SOUTH Germany and from Russia ???? WTF ??? Those countries are far away except Germany,that is closer, but not so much.
(Sorry for my english I´m still learning.)
deathtokoalas
yes, the tatras are one of the worst acid rain regions in the world, due to the effects of emissions from neighbouring regions. this is well understood. generally, acid rain falls a little bit away from it's emission source. the acid goes up, travels a bit through the air and then comes back down again.
it was a long time ago, but let me think back to what i remember learning about acid rain in the third grade.
1) acid rain is primarily caused by a reaction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide inside of clouds, which falls as sulfuric acid and nitric acid.
2) the sources of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are mostly factories.
3) canada's acid rain problem is largely caused by heavy pollution floating northwards from the area now known as the rust belt. pollution from heavy industrial areas like detroit and cleveland enters the atmosphere, moves north and falls in ontario, where it kills trees and creates dead lakes.
4) eastern europe also has a substantial acid rain problem, with the worst hit areas being poland, sweden and czechoslovakia (as it was then called, for a few more years). this is also caused by emissions moving into the region from neighbouring industrialized areas - primarily the heavily industrialized regions of germany. i distinctly recall learning about damaged statues in poland and dead lakes in sweden. this was presented as a test case, and a warning of what might happen in canada if emissions are not reduced.
as it turns out, the rust belt collapsed as a result of nafta, and emissions did decrease. europe took a more pro-active approach.
however, the effects of acid rain continue to linger in the region. again: if you don't believe me, look it up.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
ugh.
"Congelation ice is often referred to as black ice because it has a high optical depth that permits significant light transmission to the underlying water."
once again: you've explained why you can see through the ice. you haven't explained why you can see through the water.
somebody really ought to ddos the lot of these pop science sites. they post garbage.
black ice is black. or at least looks black. because of the water.
normally, you wouldn't be able to see through a body of water with a layer of black ice on it. rather, it would create a reflection of the surrounding area.
Nightmare Music
Wake up to what? What "truth"? You people already know the fucking truth. You're so worked up over NSA, even though Facebook has been doing same thing NSA has been doing for years and they do it a lot better. The truth is the rich look at you like cattle. No one is coming to get you, they are already there with Facebook and Google and EBay and Apple and whatever else on the internet. That's the "truth" and you know this but refuse to listen.
deathtokoalas
this is pretty much spot on.
i just want to add a comment about how badly bush' words have been abused by the conspiracy goofs. bush was articulating a vision of american dominance that largely operates by co-opting global governing bodies, and it's a vision that's turned out to be prophetic - but not in the way it's generally used. there was some commentary at the time that realized this, but it's mostly been buried.
"i'll buy the torture cos you pay for the rent".
al nailed it...
ganiniii
the NWO "plan" (don't want you to call me a delusional conspiracy theorist) - when I say plan I refer to the idea that the whole world should live together in peace and ruled with the same sort of freedom and juridical laws and cultural resemblence - exists at least since the 80's. It was developed by retarded geeks that have weird sex habbits and work for the UN.
deathtokoalas
see, this is what i'm pointing out is incorrect. this is literature that stems from the middle part of the 20th century, where you had a lot of crazy people on the right-wing fringe (organizing in groups like the john birch society, which was co-founded by the koch brothers' father) arguing that "nwo" was some kind of code for "communist world government".
but, that's not the way that bush used the term. bush was co-opting and redefining the term in an attempt to get out in front of the inevitable wilsonian reaction that would have come from the collapse of the soviet union. to bush, the new world order meant unopposed american imperialism - and a set of ridiculous neo-con and liberal interventionist arguments to uphold that american imperialism.
when you heard people argue in favour of invading iraq to "spread democracy", that's the new world order bush wanted put in motion. and it did get put in motion. it's the world we live in today.
of course, it's nonsense. but...
put another way, the collapse of the soviet union meant there was no longer anybody capable of reigning in american hegemony - if the soviets ever could, and they couldn't really. the new world order that bush spoke of was the process of taking advantage of that new reality.
the primary nwo document became the project for the new american century, where a set of neo-cons and liberal interventionists came together to devise a plan to reduce russia back down to the principality of moscow.
a lot of the conflicts we see today around the world are a consequence of this new world order working itself out.
of course, there's a lot of propaganda that obscures this. but, the idea that there's a secret clique running the world from the un doesn't square very well with the votes that you see there.
including the one that declared the war in iraq an illegal war.
the reality is that the power elite in the united states ritually curses the day that the institution was created and does just about everything that it legally (and illegally) can to avoid and subvert it.
ganiniii
wouldn't you say that what you just said is a bit conspiracionist?
deathtokoalas
no. in fact, it's very academic.
Egle Vilciauskaite
dude you should have lived in USSR to realy know how bad it was
deathtokoalas
i think it's an open question as to whether life in the "free world" is any better. that is, i'm not questioning whether things were bad in the soviet union - they clearly were. but, i'm wondering out loud whether things were really better in the west (for the average worker) in any kind of really meaningful way, or if it's really just a lot of propaganda. it wasn't that long ago that going on strike would get you shot. alas, i was personally eight years old when the berlin wall fell. i have no first hand experience and no way to get it.
regardless, that's not really the point. the cold war wasn't really a conflict over ideology. it's pretty established at this point that that was just propaganda. the conflict between washington and moscow carried on pretty naturally from the anglo-russian conflict that began in the napoleonic era, and it didn't end with the coup in moscow. it was a conflict between the two dominant imperial powers to decide who got to control resources for the benefit of their respective elites. once you get your head around that, the idea that the collapse of the soviet union simply provided washington with an opportunity to tighten the noose begins to make perfect sense.
again, it's not like i'm making this stuff up. the bastards have not been remotely shy about saying it themselves, either. i mean, when mitt romney said russia was america's greatest enemy he got laughed out of the room. but the reality is that what he said was pretty much accurate - it's just that you're not supposed to talk about it during elections.
heart of darkness +ganiniii I don't talk about middle class Kids who have got everything middle class Kids dream of. I talk about a time when the middle class will be gone. The Kids of tomorrow will be poor. Some will be lethargic. Lethargic trash. But some will turn into predators. It's these predators who count.
deathtokoalas
yeah, that's working out well in the middle east...
poor people are easily manipulated, because they lack access to education. if your scenario plays out (and i don't think it will; rather, i think the near future is dominated by mechanized production evening out wealth disparities a little, and the point of crisis lies in the ability to generate energy), you'll have an army of dipshits that will be easily converted into tools of imperialism. as the intelligence of the population falls, the tools needed to control them falls along with it. look at the way the saudis create groups like isis to carry out their geostrategic goals in the region. that can't fly here because our people aren't illiterate. but, you take that away and the christian right becomes dominant.
there's of course no such thing as "the illuminati", but if you take it as a code word for the capitalist elite then you need to resign yourself to their continued existence and try and work out ways to exist in freedom that more or less ignore them. i mean, at the end of the day do i care whether or not there's somebody in a yacht docked in miami eating caviar? i don't. what i care about is my life in front of me, whether these people exist or not.
ideas like the temporary autonomous zone develop out of this thinking. not a revolution, exactly; this is probably impossible. the people that financed hitler profited from his destruction.
heart of darkness +deathtokoalas"i mean, at the end of the day do i care whether or not there's somebody in a yacht docked in miami eating caviar? i don't. what i care about is my life in front of me, whether these people exist or not."
You really mean this? Call the People on top Illuminati, call them top plutocrats, call them top super rich - it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that you and me are slaves to these top parasites (a few hundred families). They believe they OWN us. Suggest you read some stories about slavery in ancient Rome, Egypt or Arabia. That's what we'll end up if we don't fight them. Better be dead than a slave.
deathtokoalas +heart of darkness
whether they exist or do not exist doesn't really have a substantial effect on my life or the tasks i need to carry out to exist in a complex society. there is work that needs to be done, whether there's a plutocracy or not.
i think it's more important to be wary about these good v evil narratives. that's how the fuckers get us. you might find the odd psychopath that wants to blow up sand niggers, but the average us soldier thinks he's joining the good fight, not protecting a pipeline. it's only through experience that they realize they've been lied to - hence the high suicide rates.
i read a report a while back that suggested that there are entire divisions of "syrian rebels" that were recruited to join the palestinian resistance, were shipped off to the battle lines in covered jeeps and spent weeks or months thinking they were shooting at israeli soldiers rather than the syrian army.
i'd rather focus on what's in front of me than get caught up in these collectivist struggles, struggles that are more often than not tied to some strategic objective by some equally evil bastard. i mean, surely you don't think the russians would topple the government and pull out...
again: the grassroots response in new orleans was actually quite inspiring, especially considering the inept and often downright criminal behaviour of law enforcement.
heart of darkness
So enjoy your robot life. Work, buy, consume, die.
The Russians won't topple the Illuminati (the "government" are just actors, accomplices and stooges as are the media). But the Russians could provide some AK 47s. Actually I think, the Chinese will topple the Illuminati.
deathtokoalas +heart of darkness
there's no other way to exist in a complex society. the question is not whether we should work and consume, but how we should. and, by denying that, you're really demonstrating the kind of luddite extremism that needs to be eradicated. i mean, if you're going to make me choose between the status quo and some backwards thoreauvian primitivism, i'll pick the status quo, thanks - and have no problem supporting people that want to bomb you. freedom does not mean abolishing progress, it means taking control of it.
as soon as you "topple the illuminati", you become the illuminati. if you want to talk about learning things from history, that's the primary lesson.
it's actually a theme in al's music, going back to twitch. one of the more obvious discussions of this topic is in the track apathy.
heart of darkness +deathtokoalas"you're really demonstrating the kind of luddite extremism that needs to be eradicated"
lol. "eradicated". stopped reading after that one. How do we call this when an extremist calls other people extremist? rofl
Hambone Jones
Now that's the truth if I ever heard it. I always get a laugh out of the idea that the US government has a "secret" agenda that they operate under in a diabolical plot to dominate the world and its' people. But the truth is there is no secret whatsoever, the US government basically works its' "evil" deeds right before our eyes and they're well aware nobody is gonna do a single fuckin' thing about any of it. The reasoning being in order for the people to really, really revolt successfully, they'd have to sacrifice the comfort and convenience of their everyday lives. Americans could never be bothered to do such a thing. No government means no housing to live under, no oil and gas for your automobile, no food to eat, and no jobs to pay for any of the aforementioned necessities of our lives. No nothing. It's the hard, sad truth of human existence; we're stuck in a vicious circle where whatever the powers that be say, goes. Liberating ourselves from that vicious circle only leads to the imminent demise of our species. What else can we possibly do but be prisoners to our own lifestyles? It disgusts me to say it, but we're better off being slaves to the system. These current generations of people couldn't handle living in the anarchist caveman-like "utopia" that many of them assume they could live in. It's one of those things that unfortunately looks better on paper than it actually is. God, I really can't stand admitting that. I really can't. But like you said man, "truth". It's inevitable.
If the people wanna fight that, I say all the best of luck to them, I mean that sincerely. I just hope they can live with the end result which would be a charred, desolate wasteland run on a barter system, where everyday could be your last due to the extremely unsafe, lawless living conditions.
deathtokoalas
i rather think that no government means nobody to force me to pay rent, nobody to charge me for public transportation (when it's too far to bicycle), nobody to put me in jail for "stealing" food and nobody to force me to go to work to pay for any of that bullshit in the first place.
Hambone Jones
Yes you would get all those things, but don't you realize the cost of that freedom? You'd live in an apocalyptic wasteland where day by day you fight tooth and nail to survive. Roving packs of murdering, raping, starving monsters who formerly were good people would rule the land and take from you what you claim is yours because there's no longer a structure in place to force laws on them to protect you from anything as such. There's a reason life isn't like that in Western culture because we're lucky enough to be given a right as human beings to live safely. Far too many of us don't realize this. You don't have anymore rights in this world I'm hypothetically speaking of. Just face it, you wouldn't want to live in that world. Or better yet, you couldn't. You wouldn't have the energy to live that kind of life on a daily basis. Hunting and gathering repeatedly, everyday, bartering for food and supplies with what little you have, and sometimes even going as far as to use your body to get what you want. What about cleaning your own drinking water, which you'd probably only be lucky to have once it rains. I guarantee you'd kill for those things as well. You'd have to. Could you live like that? Look at everything you have, step away from the computer for a second and take a good look at however many, or few things you have. I'm assuming you do appreciate those things, I'd hope. If you don't, you would once they're gone. You would once everything from heating/air conditioning to in-door plumbing and running water are a thing of the past. Grocery stores and food outlet chains are extinct and now you truly, truly work for that food, if you're lucky enough to come across any. Can you hunt or farm for yourself? Could you construct a shelter good enough to protect you from harsh summers and winters once your current home is decimated by an unforgiving world where no more services exist to fix any and all housing issues? There's a reason you pay to have these things. If everything was free; it would've disappeared long ago because human beings would've used it all up like the selfish, greedy latent savages that they are. You must not realize how dependent you are on this way of life. Like I said before, I hate having to admit it, but there's a reason the government exists. No matter what, you need the government to control people. They're animals. Their morals would disappear instantaneously if there were no social guidelines to govern them. What we need is a government that doesn't abuse its' power, not a government that doesn't exist. People take for granted the society and order we have put in place because they're so distracted by trivial bullshit like having to pay for public transportation. You wouldn't even have transportation in the world you're possibly envisioning to be better than this one. Wake up; this is it. We don't live in a perfect world and we never will, but this is a close as it gets.
deathtokoalas
lol. no. i don't think anything like that would happen at all. that sounds like a hollywood film designed to uphold the status quo through a series of scare tactics. or maybe a hip-hop record, which is more or less the same thing.
but it doesn't matter what you or i think. if you look at the evidence of what happens during periods of collapse, it's clear that communities come together to collectivize basic services. the tyranny of property is only possible through state violence. once that violence is removed, people tend to revert to a communal instinct very quickly.
your hobbesian reality is a fairy tale, or a nightmare; either way, it doesn't actually exist. all evidence suggests the exact opposite.
Hambone Jones
Right whatever you say. I think you're the one who believes in a fairy tale. The idea that people will live in harmony without law is totally laughable. If we already have a problem living civil in a state of law, what gives you the delusion that we would when there's no law whatsoever. Where's this evidence you speak of?
deathtokoalas
government is not law, it's violence. it's a property rights relationship built on top of slavery. the only way to establish a system of actual law (which exists in our minds as a set of norms and is enforced through social relations, not in a book downtown and enforced by thugs with guns) is to get rid of the thugs with their guns and property rights. government does not enforce law, it upholds a state of lawlessness that enables one class to exploit the others.
one example of many is the reaction to hurricane sandy. look up occupy sandy. this is repeatably demonstrable human behaviour, as determined through observation - not worthless philosophy some monk shat out in pre-modern england.
Hambone Jones
No, the government is law, there's no other way around it. I do agree that there is a certain social class of people who are above obeying those laws, but they still do exist and the reason they exceed their due justice is because the people are too lazy, uninformed, and unaware of the power they have to change that and bring about that said justice. The evidence is in how people vote for our Presidents and if you ask the average voter why they vote for who they choose, their answers are usually appallingly basic. Regardless, it sounds to me like you're in favor of a more communist system to be put in place of our way of life. Maybe you should educate yourself on the great USSR and how far that got them. Not to mention that the founder of the communist ideal was nothing but a spoiled rich kid who never even worked a day in his life.
And I see your Hurricane Sandy and I'll raise you a Hurricane Katrina: an event composed of extreme civil communication breakdown resulting in looting, raping, and murder. What a harmonious example of human beings coming together to show just how far removed from the animal kingdom they are.
deathtokoalas
i'm not aware of any violent crime coming out of katrina that was a result of katrina (besides disproportionate violence by state agents), but i need to point out that an anarchist would be in favour of looting stores, as they uphold commercial relations. i wouldn't call that "violence", either, i'd call it "justice". the crime in such a situation would be to prevent the distribution of goods by insisting on a payment for it. the city just sunk into the ocean and you want me to pay for that apple? that's the crime, there, and people ought to work together to string that fucker up a tree. so, i think the overall response to katrina upholds my argument, rather than yours.
the question of whether the government upholds or suspends law is partly semantic. by definition, the state exists to uphold property rights. law, in our tradition, is basically exactly that. so, we define law as the process of the state upholding property rights. but, when you compare that to any concept of distributive justice, human rights or what could be called "natural law", the state is not able to do anything but interfere. as a result, we end up with these topsy-turvy concepts of law that put property relations over rights. it's "illegal" to take an apple when you're hungry, but it's not "illegal" to watch a man starve rather than feed him. what "rule of law" is this? it's the absence of law, the absence of rights, the absence of justice - in favour of a class-based system of feudalism, where the rich can (as the op stated) treat us as commodities to be exploited.
Hambone Jones
Oh God no, Katrina does not support your argument at all. You need to read more about that entire situation. There was much more widespread murder, rape, looting and overall violence perpetrated there by civilians than there were police and Blackwater operatives, whom I'm assuming you were referring to when you said "state agents". Go ahead and read about it and leave La-La Land behind.
Also the next time you feel powerless over the "ruling class" I'd like you to read about recall elections and how the people are too stupid to realize time and time again that they can use them to their advantage but are too unorganized and uninformed to do so. The illusion that we're given is that the people have no power. However, we do have the numbers. And power is in the numbers. We're just too stupid and comfortable with our existence to compromise any of it.
deathtokoalas
i really think that you're the one that's misinformed. new orleans was a violent place before katrina, and a violent place after it. the vacuum allowed organized crime some space to develop, but that's criminals killing criminals over drugs and whatnot, not random violence due to social breakdown. the media had a very racist response that's been ironed into the narrative, but there was actually a very strong grassroots community movement in the region that had to improvise in response to the total lack of any response from fema.
i've been dancing around the point, but the reality is that the apocalyptic future you're describing is what we already have, because it's what the state is designed to do. madison was pretty clear on the point that the purpose of the byzantine structure of government in the united states is to make it virtually impossible for people to use the local state apparatus to actually organize. the existing circumstance is one where there is no law, no social services, no real actual "government" - just a police state that herds people around.
Hambone Jones
So you're telling me that a life-altering hurricane was a non-factor in how fucked up things are/were in New Orleans? Unbelievable, so that only proves my point further that people are complete animals, even under the control of the government. Again, whatever fantasy world you're living in where people are these loving, caring creatures who come together to help benefit each other as a species, rather than savages who violently fend for themselves by any means of survival, I'll never understand it. You can live there if you want; everybody has the right to sleep comfortably at night. Only time will tell which one of us has our thumb more firmly placed on the pulse of the people.
deathtokoalas
well, new orleans is very deeply divided along class lines, which are strongly racial in character. it has a high poverty rate and a high crime rate. one would expect that already existing gangs would take advantage of the situation, but that doesn't finger the hurricane as the cause of anything. the cause would be the factors that created the already existing crime and poverty problems.
this is a decent summary:
a k
Your heart is in the right place; but it is not the free markets fault. It is the fault of ex Nazi's like George soreos and totalitarians like Bloomberg who give money to people like Obama, Clinton, and bush to put regulations on the free market in order for the existing wealthy people will be the only wealthy people. Because of government regulations on the free market, it is impossible for the younger generation get into doing manual labor.
deathtokoalas
no. the "free market" is essentially an orwellian term for a specific type of statism. the only way to enforce the rules is with force. markets are inherently violent. the market cannot exist without the state to enforce the rules, and will collapse along with it. to even suggest it will collapse with it is confusing; they're identical, precisely the same thing.
i mean, i know that i, for one, would never accept the ideas underlying private property if it weren't for the the coercive threat of violence forcing me to.
Guy Pearson
What is the Hegelian dialectic and dialectics in general?
deathtokoalas
i wouldn't get too caught up in them. the scientific method is far superior to any system of dialectics.
put another way, dialectical reasoning is precisely what is wrong with marxism and precisely what needs to be rejected in order to move the left forward. it's easy enough to look up. but it's exactly wrong.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
man, you guys read too much into stuff. i know that's the deal with what you do, but at the same time you're often soooo close. i'm a little (ok a lot) behind on video feed, so i'm just getting to this now.
1) bowe bergdahl was charged with desertion this week. this was the obvious setup. i'm pointing it out here to demonstrate that it was obvious and you guys should have seen it. there's been rumours for a while, now, that desertion in afghanistan is under-reported. and, this is something that goes back to vietnam or further. but, it's really right out of 1984. i don't doubt for a minute that the stories around bergdahl are accurate, or that he was really in detention. rather, i'd point that this is exactly why they needed to get him back. the united states army is not a democratic institution. it's a violent, ruthless, top down structure where rape is rampant as a tool of control. most civilians (and i'm a civilian...) couldn't contemplate how this really works. so, you've got a deserter. what the army is going to do is take the guy, bring him back, force him back to duty [to send the message that you can run, but you can't hide] and then send him to jail. it's been a long time since they executed somebody for desertion, but it's still a possibility. so, is it a "psy-op"? well, sort of. but, the audience is every serviceman or woman who's ever considered just taking off into the countryside. the message is clear: the army will track you down, put you back in service and then punish you for it. there is no escape.
2) this iran/america "detente" is totally overblown. and, i think it's an error to think that the americans wanted to prop up maliki. rather, it's pretty clear that they wanted maliki out. my reading into the situation is that a substantial part of the isis movement into iraq was to force a regime change one way or the other - either maliki steps down, or isis takes him out. and, of course the saudis think any shiite is a heretic that should suffer their equivalent of being burned at the stake, so it's right in line with their interests. what the americans are doing here is creating the situation which they wanted in the first place, which is bringing forces back in. remember: the americans wanted a force to remain in iraq, but couldn't get maliki to sign a sofa. the crux of the fighting seems to be a proxy war between the saudis and the turks, and the americans may be helping to knock out a few undesirable elements. but all i can see happening in front of me is the americans finding a sneaky way to reestablish the presence they didn't really want to terminate. of course, that's on top of an excuse to blow up abandoned syrian military installations...
this is a Big Deal.
forget the stuff about the province and socialized housing, it's a front to get the loan. the purpose of this policy is the financialization of the budget deficit.
what this means is that, from this point forward, the bank will have a revenue stream coming from taxation in toronto. the city will collect property taxes and give it to the bank as interest on the loan. so, shareholders will be directly taxing citizens.
"they can't do that!". you're right - this is illegal in spirit. it's legal on a loophole. it's an abuse of power. hence the front story.
this is consistent with pc policy over the last few decades, which has been to transfer wealth from public institutions to financial institutions. this is just considerably more ballsy than anything you saw from the harris or harper governments. none of them would consider creating a revenue stream out of taxation...
it's again indicative of the contempt that government has for people right now. economists all over the spectrum have been calling for taxes on financial transactions. a "bank tax". well, toronto just got a bank tax. but, instead of being a tax on financial transactions that transfers wealth from banks to public institutions, it's a property tax that creates a revenue stream for the bank.
this is a structural problem, and it will spiral out of control. it threatens to create the same kind of systemic problems that exist in cities like detroit. torontonians can expect to wake up in ten years and realize that their interest payments to jp morgan are so high that they have to sell off public services.
it's sneaking under the radar. that can't happen. this must be challenged. it creates a feudal tax structure that is not consistent with a free society and will have dramatic, third-world type consequences.
note the allusion to household spending. this is done to create confusion over the nature of public and private debt.
again, the purpose of this is to put the city into private debt. this is an abuse of power, and if it's not fought the city will face severe consequences. the financial institutions will also repeat the stunt in other cities.
i wouldn't count on the province to do anything, either; from what i can see, they seem to be in on it.
the purpose of the post is to get the idea out to residents of toronto to organize to launch a legal challenge. i can't and won't get into the details. it's just a call to action.
this is of course very different than selling off highways and electricity grids. but, it's following the same playbook.
1) obfuscation. the electricity privatization was sold as a way to reduce costs by opening up a market. but, ontarians know how that worked out. it went through the roof, with no end in sight. they'll blame it on "environmentalism", but the reality is anybody that got through economics 101 saw this coming as clear as day. people are switching to coal and gas to reduce costs, as the climate warms. it's outrageous, given that it costs almost nothing to run a hydro plant. who wins? bay street. likewise, they're running all kinds of plays here to confuse people - pinning it to the cost of social housing, talking about the city like it's a "house" etc. these arguments get rammed down your throat by media, and people just don't have the economic education to see through them. 2) privatizing profits, after you confuse people. but this is really different. this isn't just taking over something that could arguably be a business. i mean, i'd argue that resources ought to be publicly owned, but there's at least a debate there. we're talking about turning taxation into private revenue, here. we're talking about the government collecting money from people at gun point and giving it to the financial sector.
it's different, but it's the same process, and the same end point. which is why it's so transparent. it's one thing to whine about people being fucking idiots. but it's secondary, right now. this has got to be fought.
i
think maybe most of it might be a little too "modern" for your tastes.
most of it is broadly categorized as "classical music", but it's
classical music with distorted and often dissonant guitars, grating
percussion and weird sound effects. i like beethoven (and you can often
tell), but agree with his dismissive opinions on rossini. so, there's
not much of that. it's more drawing from the tradition of varese,
stockhausen, cage and zappa - and following that line of thinking as it
evolved through integration with rock traditions through the 60s, 70s
and 80s.
nana
glad to hear you got it!I am
getting many phone calls for you regarding your student loans.Could you
please get in touch with them.The calls are all on my answering
machine.Yes I am curious to here your music so will stream it.Take care
& stay in touch.
jessica
i'm sorry that they're bothering you about the loans. i don't want that to happen.
however,
i've been trying to avoid them rather purposefully, as it's not clear
what my financial situation is going to be over the next few years. if i
could tell them "i'm on disability", it would put me in a no payment
status. but, i can't do that until i get that cleared up. so, i've been
waiting for it to get cleared up until i contact them. i was hoping that
was going to be dealt with months ago, but there seems to be a push
from the top down to get people off disability. that means i might have
to push back a little harder than i'd like to. i think an analysis of my
life history makes it clear that i should be on disability, it's just a
question of making that apparent.
the other thing is
that i may be eligible for an artists' grant should the disability not
work out, and i don't know how outstanding loans would affect that. i'll
need to apply for that rather soon.
i'd ask that you
tolerate this for a few more months, until i can get this cleared up. i
know it's annoying, but i simply can't deal with what they want me to
pay. they're expecting $1200/month. my income, with tax benefits, is
$1150. so, it's impossible. but i can't claim i'm going to be on odsp
because i can't get the papers.
my deadline is on the
13th of april, but i feel like my appointment on the 17th of february is
going to let me know whether disability is something i can rely on or
not
so, i'll be doing *something* in the next few weeks about this, but it's not yet clear what i can do.
i
think i explained this story a few times, but i think i'm fighting
against some misinformation spread by my sister. i wasn't supposed to
have this debt in the first place, but i got suckered into it by my
father. further, my step-mother is not upholding his obligations on the
matter - rather, she's denying that the obligations exist. i suspect he
may have been dishonest with her, and that the money he was supposed to
use for this ended up lost in poker games, horse races or stock options.
that is, he may have told her he was giving me money and gambled it
away instead - perhaps even with the legitimate intention of winning
money to give me. my father had a gambling problem. he kept it quiet,
but he never really defeated it. when people have gambling problems like
that, it can warp their thinking. that is, if my suspicion is correct, i
don't doubt that he meant to use the cash he won to pay the debt down.
it's just that it wasn't done transparently with his wife, and
ultimately wasn't very smart, and now i'm stuck with the consequences of
it.
i've tumbled this over in my mind a lot and have
to conclude i'm at fault for putting myself in a reliant situation. but
it doesn't change the reality that i got screwed over.
so, this is what happened...
when
i got out of school the first time (in 2006) the debt was manageable. i
managed to find a decent job that allowed me to get a nice apartment
and pay into it. the monthly payments at the time were about $300 -
about a third of which was interest to start, but it went down over
time. i paid almost $10000 into it from 2006-2008. and i was also able
to maintain a little nest egg for emergencies.
near the
end of 2008, i was having difficulty finding employment. i still had
that nest egg, so it wasn't really imperative that i find employment
immediately. my dad was trying to get me to go back to school, but i
specifically didn't want to increase my debt and resisted his requests.
going back to school would have meant either going into debt or moving
home, or both. it didn't seem like a smart decision, given that it
didn't seem like going back to school was going to help me with my
ambitions, which, at the time, were to simply find a job i could walk
to, and focus on recording. i was hoping i could just wait it out and
eventually get a job at starbucks or something. the one way i'd think it
was worthwhile to go back to school is if he promised to pay both the
rent and the schooling. it was offered almost sarcastically - i didn't
think he'd actually agree to it. but, he did, which created an offer i
couldn't refuse. i mean, if the choice is school or work and it doesn't
cost me anything to go to school then school is always going to be the
rational choice - school is more enjoyable than work, less scheduled,
etc.
so, i applied for graduate school in mathematics
and was accepted. at the end of august, though, i had second thoughts. i
looked at the job market. i saw jobs in programming. my recent
background was working tech support for hp and microsoft. i thought an
undergraduate programming degree would be more marketable than a
graduate degree in mathematics. i don't regret that decision; i think it
was a correct analysis of the job market at the time.
however,
a few things happened in the spring of 2008 - the markets crashed,
primarily. combined with the higher dollar, foreign firms saw a
disincentive to invest in job growth in canada. that didn't really
change over the next few years.
the week before classes
started, he told me that the market crash made it impossible to carry
through with his promise. he encouraged me to take out a loan, and
promised he'd pay it back by the end of the year. the problem was that
i'd missed the loan deadline. so, i put my nest egg down to pay off the
semester, expecting to get it back by the end of the year. i then
applied for odsp starting in the winter. *that was the error i made that
led to all the problems that followed*. i should have just looked for a
job.
several semesters went by, and he kept promising
me he'd pay it down, but it never happened. the loans just kept adding
up. i had faith in him to carry out his promise. and, he was still
promising he'd pay it down on his death bed.
about a
week before he died, the three of us worked out an agreement. the
step-mother would give me a few hundred dollars a month. but when i got
back from windsor, she claimed he was "delusional on his death bed". i
could probably sue her for this and win, but i don't want to spend the
next ten years in a court battle. and, should i stay on odsp long
enough, the loan will no doubt be "forgiven" anyways. i'd rather take
this approach than spend who knows how much on court fees and untold
amounts of time preparing legal arguments.
i just need odsp to follow through on it...
but i didn't want this mess. i specifically tried to avoid it. but i got suckered in by a promise that was never upheld.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
it's estimated that the diet of urban coywolves is about 40% stray pets, and it's generally understood that that number increases in areas with strong feral cat populations.
he doesn't know what you're talking about; he thinks you're asking him if he's a white supremacist.
fwiw, the statistics are pretty clear that white privilege does not
exist in canada. it certainly does exist in the southern united states.
but, statistically, whites are not at the top of the income ladder in
canada. they're not even second.
this has largely to do with the immigration system that was introduced
during the pearson government, which abolished racial categories on
immigration and restricted it to highly educated people. so, there's
actually an inversion of the situation in the united states (where
people of colour were historically enslaved). canada does have a history
of slavery, but the percentage of people in canada that are descendents
of african slaves is statistically insignificant. i think it's about
0.2% of the population. almost all black canadians are recent african or
caribbean immigrants, and they require advanced levels of education
(and in most cases concrete employment opportunities) to enter the
country. in canada, our non-white population has a much higher level of
education, a much higher window of opportunity and much higher incomes.
our white population, on the other hand, is mostly composed of the
traditional working class, which has been eased into low income work
over the last few decades.
somebody working on a critical legal theory in the southern united states would not have cared about whether their ideas were applicable in canada or not. whatever else you think of these ideas, this generalization is our error, not theirs. a critical legal theory should exist in canada, but it should be developed out of an understanding of the relevant history and data.
what john tory did this week in signing up for a line of credit is heading toronto to the path of bankruptcy, as we've recently seen in cities like detroit. it's remarkable that so many voters continue to be so stupid as to think that conservatism has anything to do with fiscal responsibility. rather, what we've seen from the progressive conservatives in ontario has consistently been a systemic political goal - that is, this is ideological - to transfer wealth from taxpayers to financial institutions. it's a dominant, consistent theme.
the financial institutions are going to make millions from this, while torontonians pay for it for the next fifty years.
you just got sold, toronto.
it's hard to know what the comments here really represent - people naively thinking they have anonymity over the internet and can escape the bounds of political correctness by posting here, or just a lunatic fringe. see, this is why libertarians get weirded out by all this culturally enforced self-censorship. it doesn't eliminate racial bias. it just sweeps it under the rug, where it's allowed to gestate in a way that nobody can really measure until it explodes. i think the fringe idea is more likely. but it's honestly hard to say, because it's just so quieted.
i think there's a deeper concern, from a ruling elite perspective. i maintain a level of agnosticism about this stuff; the reality is that i can't prove this stuff did or did not happen, and the preponderance of evidence is pretty clear that it's reasonable to be skeptical. it's simply not coherent to question the official narratives on syria, yugoslavia and vietnam just to start with (as a fact-based analysis necessitates), but to draw the line on germany as though it's beyond question. that's just not clear thinking. it's easy to paint yourself into this awful space by pointing this out. but this is the fact of it: i have no idea what happened 40 years before i was born, and there's simply not a source that can explain it to me that i can trust. agnosticism is the logical conclusion. one should not attack me for this, one should realize that it is the inevitable conclusion of seventy plus years of american foreign policy built on staged attacks, secret wars and just balls out lies. if somebody lies to you every day for fifty years, why should you believe what he told you fifty one years ago? don't go after me for this, go after the state.....
but, that's just it. whether the motives for invading germany were containing the soviets or not, and whatever actually happened there, the liberation of auschwitz is the year zero of the american empire. whether it's myth or reality, it's the founding myth of the empire. the reason this gets so much attention four, five, six times a year is that this needs to be enforced. it defines the state, as the state defines itself.
for people to increasingly question the validity of the holocaust is consequently to increasingly question the foundation of the american empire. this has deep consequences.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
the condescension was really uncalled for and hard to watch. i mean, by the time i was eight i had a better understanding of american foreign policy than lucas over there. if you're going to bring a kid like that in at all, what's the point of being snide about it......
and, it's hardly like resource management is a less pressing issue than
war. in terms of consequences, it's the most pressing issue. in terms of
war, it's the dominant underlying factor. mallory was right to shift
the topic; you adults are all doing this all wrong.
this was meant to be rabit is wolf. sean wanted a song that just went "lalalala". i think his intent was to try and simplify my thought process, because what i'd been doing sounded more like FTIeikdTY7isdD7E5dk!. he was just kind of like "how about.....lalalala.".
it got a bit of an eye roll from me, as you could imagine, but i played with it. he wasn't really that excited about what i did, and it just didn't move forward. there were no further sessions, as he became interested in working with a more conventional early 00s "emotional hardcore" (think at the drive in) style guitarist and i got very involved in a relationship
despite his initial suggestion, i'd consider the result to clearly be of my own doing. so, i took the core of what i did and warped it into the first track on the reflections symphony.
as his intentions are clear, i don't have a problem completing the vocals on my own, and it's what i'll be doing as inri043. there may have been a vocal part recorded, but i don't have it any more.
so, the ostrich thing is getting pushed back a release. this is going to be a relatively quick remix, with a simple vocal line. and i'm releasing it as rabit because it's collaborative in the abstract, despite sean not actually existing in the track.
for now, this was the initial forwards version of the song, which is only coming
down to me over the space of time via mp3 and a collection of scattered
source tracks. there's actual nothing but guitars in this version. it's dated to nov 15, 2002.
i decided the vst mix is good after all, it just needs volume....
--
this track was initially written as a folk punk song, but i jumped to
the scorewriter with it almost immediately. the expanded guitar demo was
written in a scorewriter and then performed, rather than vice versa. it
was initially less about explicitly creating a techno song and more
about ordering the parts in a way that could be deconstructed more
effectively.
the taiko drum part was initially just to keep time; it wasn't supposed
to be a part of the song. but, as i built it up i began to realize how
interesting it sounded as a techno tune and sort of ran with it.
written over the summer of 2002. remixed in december, 2014. this render is from dec 26, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
i've
decided to keep the intro guitar part out of the 2002 mix, because i'm
going to soundscape the fuck out of it in ways that i couldn't have
really done at the time and it just doesn't sound good in raw form.
so, this mix is done. the rss will update. i'm back at the three vst mixes for tomorrow.
when this comes up, crank the bass on it....
carefully. it's potentially speaker-blowing. but it's made to rock the low end hard.
that was the hard part, this should be quick from this point.
this
compiles all the 2002 files into a mix that is as close as i can get it
to sounding as i initially imagined it back in 2002. mix completed jan 27, 2015.
this really isn't that new. it's been clear for a while now that there are far too many named species; there was paleoanthropological literature produced in the 80s and 90s that put forth the idea that all these homo *s are just presenting variation, and they need to be condensed into two or three species rather than a dozen or more. you're fighting against the egos of the researchers. this will eventually come out in the wash.
if neanderthals and sapiens produced viable offspring, and it is clear now that they did, then what that means is that - by definition - they were actually not distinct species. rather, what you're seeing in the difference in the bones is just local variation.
likewise, there wasn't a dozen "archaic" species in africa, but merely a lot of variation. these are going to need to be deleted.
now, the next question is regarding erectus. i don't see any reason to rule out interbreeding, a priori, by analyzing bone fragments. rather, it strikes me as entirely reasonable to project a discovery of erectus genes, should they be possible to really analyze.
once you get to more primitive forms, you lose the ability to differentiate. that is, you can place early sapiens (which probably interbred with ergaster) in africa, neanderthalensis in europe, the denisovans in northern asia and erectus in southern asia. but these would all just be local populations, not distinct species. any further hybridizing would exist within these base populations, which would have existed in these regions for a very long time before the out of africa migration.
the result is nothing revolutionary. it's merely a synthesis of the once competing singular and multi-regional hypotheses - out of africa, yes, but what came out of africa interbred with local populations wherever it went, creating continuity in local populations.
you need to take this stuff with a grain of salt. the reality is that everybody working in the field wants to name a species and is willing to twist any fragment they can find into an opportunity to do so. look around you; human variation is dramatic. we should be reducing the number of named species, not increasing it.
Grant Molyneux
I prefer wombats myself, but what is wrong with Koalas?
deathtokoalas
the nefarious cuteness of koalas cannot be tolerated by any polite society. they must be destroyed.
Grant Molyneux
You should give them a break. After all their brain size has actually reduced over evolutionary time due to the tough food they have to digest. And hey if cuteness and nefarious (comments about defenseless marsupials) are concerned you should be destroyed also. LOL :)
deathtokoalas
you fool. do you truly believe these nefarious creatures have suffered decreased cognitive abilities, or do they merely have you under their psychological control? when a caterpillar loses it's legs, it gains it's wings. their cuteness has served as a distraction. they must be annihilated before they control us all.
he brings up something important near the end, and i'm not going to fill in the blanks, here. if you see this message, do not reply to it or like it or share it. i'm only posting it here, now, because i know my life is coming to an end. just simply read it and understand it....
it was understood through most of the 20th century century that reform, for the elite, was a hobson's choice. they could share their wealth or be sent to the guillotine. and, the grisliness of the consequences aside, most people can realize the justice in the threat - so long as it's used carefully.
but, technology has changed and, because of it, the elite no longer need to live in fear of the consequences of their greed. it creates a dour future.
first, there will be no sharing. that has been decided. there will be war. that is all.
second, the technology will be used to it's maximum extent. riot police. precision drone strikes. surveillance. there's nowhere to hide. 40,000 dead in ohio...
there's always this discussion about tactics. putting 1+2 together means there's not a choice whether to fight or not, and there's not much question as to the outcome.
don't fight. in any way.
flee.
get out....
Sunday, January 25, 2015
these kinds of international agreements are imperative, moving forwards. we have to learn how to sustainably share our resources, rather than remain in competition over the most profitable way to exploit them. and it's one of those little - but important - things that makes you remember why it's worthwhile to have the fascists with the Ds in charge, rather than the fascists with the Rs in charge.
of course, the rest of the world also needs to be careful about american motives regarding things like international straits.
but the actual premise, here, is very truly an absolute necessity.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
i don't want to comment on this documentary directly...
yugoslavia was kind of a turning point for me. it was a little before the apec summits, which is when i caught the media balls out lying to me for the first time. but it was yugoslavia that was my first point of confusion, the first point where it clicked that shit wasn't really adding up...
i wasn't old enough to really have the focus to follow or interest in following what was really happening, and the state of the internet wasn't such that i would have really had the tools available, anyways. the internet as a reliable source of information? is she mad? well, that's kind of what i want to talk about.
the action-reaction premise struck me as reasonable. the serbs were carrying out genocide. they needed to be stopped. therefore, war was justified. and, i can't claim that my logic on the matter has wavered over the years, even if my position on the conflict has become a bit more nuanced. if milosevic was carrying out genocide then he should have been obliterated by a united nations force to enforce the message that the world does not and will not tolerate this. that remains as true today as it did then. what's a little less clear is how valid the premise is, or how much it holds up relative to various complexities. why were the russians pushing back? and why were chinese embassies getting bombed?
see, it's not that i've concluded that the narrative i got from western media was "wrong", exactly. it's that i've concluded that there's no way to know. it's the rabbit hole that people started warning us about in the first half of the twentieth century. and, what's happening moving forward is that a generation of kids are becoming cognizant that this orwellian prediction is not something that might exist in the distant future, but the reality we live in day-to-day. it's the only reality we've ever known.
faced with some ideas that didn't add up, and some contradictions coming from people in my class that were born in the region, i wanted to clear things up. i was really just curious. so, how does a young person attempt to determine what happened in yugoslavia?
in the past, one might look towards literature. but is this reasonable today? certainly, publishers have no real interest in whether they're publishing bullshit or not. in our existing economy, books are a product and not a source of information. the publisher is not going to care about the level of inaccuracy, so long as the book sells. so, you can't trust the written documents. there's no real functioning review process.
worse, is that the nature of the evidence is subject to any and all types of modification. pictures can be doctored. film can be manufactured. actors can be paid. the media is as valuable as the source, and no source is above question.
the internet provided me with an opinion that seemed to be outside the bounds of state censorship, but it seemed impossible to believe. like i was watching the xfiles. it wasn't helping with my realization that there's not a useful source.
if you realize this, how far back can you take it? if you take an agnostic position on yugoslavia - as i claim you must, unless you were there yourself - do you take an agnostic position on vietnam? auschwitz?
it's right down the rabbit hole...
what i eventually found useful in getting a better understanding of what was happening was not evidence coming at me from yugoslavia, but the history of the region combined with understood geopolitical aims of the major powers. if you present me with an image of a mass grave or a chemical weapons attack, that means nothing to me - i know this is easily manufactured, and i do not trust you enough not to manufacture it. however, if you provide me with this evidence in the context of the "chessboard" (if you will), then i can begin to draw conclusions by making deductions about rational agents.
i suspect i'm not the only person my age that fell through the rabbit hole in this time period, and i think it's something that warrants further exploration on it's own merits.
it's been a while since i uploaded anything totally new, so i'm going to jump ahead a little with this. it's not clear how i'll be presenting this, yet.
this is an abandoned mix from late 2002 (uploaded unmodified) and will be the track i'll be working on next.
as this is the last track of the jjjjjjjjjjj phase, i'm going to finish this as an epic. it's an exceedingly rough skeleton. i thought i had more of a score than i do, so i'm going to have to score it first. again: i thought this would be sort of quick, but it clearly needs a lot of work.
i'm having difficulty focusing. with all the other stuff i'm always going on about, if you had a bit of an outline of my life you'd maybe question why i'm not wondering about add. i'm kind of textbook, actually. but it's never really been something i can't get over. and i'm not about to start popping crack-cocaine....
to answer the question directly? i don't accept the existence of add. i think it's just an excuse to sell drugs to kids. sorry.
so, what's really going on?
well, i've been through this before. repeatedly. it's generally driven by a feeling of ineptitude. meaning it's more like a type of depression that sets in when the tasks in front of me aren't easy to complete. i think this stems from not going through a lot of difficulty as a kid. i was a gifted kid. i didn't learn to struggle. i didn't learn to compete; there was nobody to compete with. i wasn't faced with something i couldn't do with minimal effort until i was in my 20s, and i simply didn't know how to approach the situation. i kind of go into these states of shock, instead, where i can't address what i'm supposed to be addressing.
when i know i can get what i want out of my tools, i tend to be very efficient. it's when i'm not sure how i'm going to proceed that i start to procrastinate. it's the same thing with all aspects of my life. if i know how i'm going to approach an essay, it's done relatively quickly. if i don't, it's not done until the last minute, or a week past the due date.
what it exposes isn't some kind of chemical imbalance that can be fixed with drugs. it's more like a reversed value system. i don't have this "protestant work ethic". and i don't glorify hard work. rather, i expect to be talented enough to do things without trying, and i get depressed when i realize i'm not.
i don't find forcing it helps. it has to pass. but what's pissing me off at this particular point in time is that the amount of time i have left is probably limited. i'll find out on the 17th. but it's very likely that i will take my own life sometime between april and july, as my disability runs out and i'm left without further acceptable options. i should be getting as much done as i can...
instead, i find myself wasting time on youtube.
my goal over this period was supposed to be to get a whole lot done. but i've wasted most of the last month, and am not really clear when this is going to lift.
if i'm not able to focus on this track within a day or two, i'm going to have to skip it and come back to it.
the first time i EVER received ANY grade less than 70 was in the second year of university.
there's been a lot written about why c students end up managing things, and a students end up as drone workers. a big part of it is no doubt due to reducing independent thought in management, which is a fundamental tactic of the class war. that is, the big bosses don't want the little bosses to be smart - they just want them to be obedient. but i think another part of it is that kids with lower grades are more resilient. they have to fight harder, younger. it becomes a more dominant component of their life.
somebody like me that walks into the eighth grade, gets thrown out for picking on the teacher and then gets an a anyways because i was at a twelfth grade level when i was 8 just spends that whole process in stasis, whereas somebody that's moving at the grade level in the way the system demands is constantly struggling and learning.
at the end of it, i spent high school tossing planes and smoking pot - and still got an a average because i could have passed an equivalency test in the 7th, before i set foot in the place. the kid that struggled through with a B- consequently learned a whole lot more than i did, both scholastically and non-scholastically. when the kid that struggled walks out of school, they're walking into a world they were prepared for. when i walked out of school, i was walking into a world i didn't understand at all.
i guess it took me ten years just to figure that out.
and, at the moment, i haven't the faintest clue how to address it.
all i know is that, when i'm faced with a challenge, i tend to get depressed and give up rather than become determined and try harder.
he's missing an opportunity to make an important point.
the class war is all about reactions. that's what he's getting at with his cyclical thing (which is maybe a little counter-revolutionary, but whatever). so, the next thing that has to happen is that labour has to react to globalization. but, he's restricting his context to america.
you could pull the bangladeshi producers to their knees with general strikes, but the way things are nowadays is that they'll get up and move to cambodia.
so, action must be co-ordinated across borders to be effective. and that's hard..
the first thing that jumps to mind is that i've been dealing with a lot of symptoms of ms lately, and it's more evidence. but i feel that's jumping to conclusions. it might be correct, but what else could it be?
sore arm = heart attack? it's on the right side, which doesn't *really* matter. but it feels like a muscle issue. i've had my blood pressure checked several times over the last few months, and it's actually very low. so, i'm going to write that off as obscure.
carpal tunnel syndrome? don't laugh. i do absurd amounts of typing, and noticed my left wrist was a little sore the other day. i think i'm going to want to monitor that. but it's a little too high up in the arm.
for right now, i'm actually going to merely assume that i pulled it a little doing groceries yesterday. i ended up with a bigger bag of fruit than i was expecting because the strawberries and bananas were both on sale. and i had a coffee in the other hand, along with a knapsack full of soy milk and oj, because it was also on sale. so, it was a big haul. i felt it as i was walking, but not when i got home; then again, you generally don't notice it until you wake up.
i do a lot of walking, but no muscle training, so i'm in very good health but weak as a twig. the solution is to fix my bicycle and start using it...
a sore arm probably won't slow me down tonight, but it might. we'll have to see if it prevents me from sitting up or if i'm going to have to spend the night in bed.
the reason this is important is that the dominant crt race narrative largely upholds the idea of white supremacy. the idea of slavery as having to do with race is very recent, and came out of economic factors. for centuries, it was mostly about class. as class-based civilization collapsed in the dark ages, it became mostly about religion. and, as class-based civilization has been re-established, it's again become mostly about class.
i just think a global perspective is imperative to get to a real understanding of what slavery is, and this is in turn imperative in breaking down the hierarchical divisions. the way this is being approached currently isn't doing that, it's just enforcing the euro-centric perspective of white people as global hegemons - a narrative that is easily understood as largely false, if you're able to take that global perspective.
i apologize for the source. yikes. but this is the value of youtube as a source, lol. this is easily verifiable.....take it as a starting point...
to rephrase this...
i've had this debate with white people. it goes something like this: if it's true that all races are equal (and that needs a statistical definition to be coherent due to individual variability, it's a blurry thing to try and even define), then why is it that white people have been dominant throughout history? if blacks and whites are equal, why have whites continually enslaved blacks for thousands of years?
and the answer is that the premise is false. slavery has historically usually not been about race. and when it is about race, there's no one skin colour that clearly dominates the other.
but by rooting itself in anti-empirical thinking on the topic. the dominant current leftist narrative on this (however wrong it is) is producing the empirical data that racists need to uphold their views.
i mean, it's a valid empirical question, right? if you want to know if there are superior races, you don't begin with an assumption (whatever the assumption is). rather, you look at the evidence and draw conclusions. that's how smart, modern people approach questions of the sort.
if you take this perspective that white people have been dominant throughout history, an empiricist is going to conclude that white people are, in fact, superior. and, to be blunt, i couldn't argue with the point; if it were a correct understanding of history, i'd have to agree with the deduction. so, it's important to collapse these false narratives and push the point that history does not provide this empirical argument at all.....
flipped around, consider the truth of the following statement: if it is really true that all races are equal, then history should show all races and skin colours and cultures enslaving each other at roughly equal proportions (relative to the social and technological abilities of the relative periods). and if you read it inclusively, history does in fact demonstrate this, where it is possible, throughout the old world.
you gotta check the genes, dude. and it adds up. sort of. there's a lot of white and a lot of native in there, too. but the dominant genes in african americans are the same as the dominant genes in western africa, and they're not found elsewhere. these are very different than the genetics connected to the austronesian migration across the pacific, or the native american genes. demonstrating a physical similarity to austronesians is not useful in suggesting a native american ancestry.
the similarity is the result of plasticity, which is very high when it comes to bone morphology. so, you'll notice that the indigenous people of brazil would also fit your test fairly well, as they look similar to polynesian peoples. yet, they are not genetically related. rather, this is the result of everybody living in a rainforest.
if you grabbed some people from sweden and made them live in the rainforest, it wouldn't take more than a few generations for the same traits to develop. you can already see this rather clearly with the skin tone of californians of scandinavian descent.
you're right about arabs invading malaysia, though.
wait, is this some kind of mormonism or something?
you know, i don't want to really disagree with her exactly, but i think she's taking a fairly narrow approach. but, i mean, she's what, 23? sometimes 23 year-olds sound like 23 year-olds.
she kind of picked a bad example with agriculture, because nobody's going to argue that agriculture originated in africa. excluding the nile valley, which is in africa but is geographically separated from the rest of africa, africa doesn't really have the right climate for this. it's generally understood that hunter-gatherer societies carried on in africa because it made more sense to continue that way of life in the region. agriculture developed for reasons that weren't applicable to most of africa, and didn't make sense in the terrain. now, it's hard to be sure about things that happened thousands of years before written history, but the widely held consensus is that agriculture developed in the near east about 10,000 years ago. there's some evidence that it may have developed independently in china. but, nobody argues against the idea that the agriculture that took root in the nile and moved south to ethiopia migrated into africa from the "fertile crescent".
that being said, there's some evidence that some of the earliest egyptian civilization may have been black. very contentious topic. you're arguing over the shapes of noses in carvings and wall paintings. but, i think the evidence actually does lean in that direction, indicating that one of the earliest advanced cultures was probably a black culture. the idea is that it probably developed around the modern sudan and moved north up the nile. over time, it would have converted itself into a white culture through migration and integration into a series of asian and european empires. now, here's the twist on this: the same evidence that suggests that the civilization was black in it's earliest stages suggests that they had white slaves. so, you've got to swallow a poison pill, there.
i don't want to trivialize the african slave trade, but the idea that it was about race is sort of a half-truth. it was actually mostly about religion. i can't write an essay here, so i'll do it in point form. this is the historical timeline...
1) arabs declared non-muslims slaves. arabs didn't invent slavery, and they probably weren't the first to racialize it, but racial based slavery was not common in the roman world that they took over, so this was a relatively novel development. but, it was really about religion, not race. the arabs enslaved africa thousands of years before westerners did. but, they also enslaved white slavs in eastern europe (slave and slav are, in fact, etymologically identical - the english word for slave is ethnic, but it refers to eastern europeans, rather than blacks), indians and anybody else that wouldn't convert. this was the result of the systemic slavery of eastern europeans in the muslim world.
2) the catholic church copied this with a papal bull in 1452 that declared anybody that wasn't a christian a slave. and, in fact, when catholic europeans sailed to ethiopia and found christians there, they could not legally enslave them and consequently did not. the ethiopian state survived as an independent african kingdom deep into the colonial period, before finally being conquered.
3) the reformation happened, which made northern europe independent from southern europe for the first time since charlemagne (how's that for an over-simplification?). this took countries like england outside of papal authority. but, the same basic idea of religion being the dominant reason for slavery continued to apply, and was often inverted. rather than catholics enslaving non-catholics, you had protestants enslaving catholics. hence the enslavement of ireland. meanwhile, countries like spain continued to follow the papal bull and enslave the non-christian cultures they could conquer.
4) the slave trade was commercialized, which is when it got really brutal. and plenty people in africa of multiple ethnicities - blacks, whites, arabs - made a lot of money from it. america was built on top of this slavery, but it still wasn't fully racialized. a plantation in the period would have had a mix of african, irish and native american slaves. many black americans have significant irish ancestry as the result of slave owners trying to "cross-breed" them for traits the way you'd cross-breed dogs.
5) there was always a contradiction in puritanical christians building a country on top of slavery based on non-conversion. the idea doesn't really jive well with utopian christian virtue, and the white american settlers were in many ways all about that. it wasn't until after slavery had become institutionalized in the united states (and this is relatively late - the early 1800s), and people started questioning the increasing brutality of it (partly due to their puritanical upbringing...) that religious justifications were converted into racial ones. all of a sudden, you had the church arguing for racialized slavery using biblical quotes. even as the civil war was happening and rights were being won, this hierarchical idea of race-based labour was institutionalized.
6) over the last few generations, the dominant enslaved group in the united states has actually shifted from purchased black slaves in the southeast to migrant workers in the southwest. black slavery didn't end so much as it took on the form of incarceration over trivial laws.
what i'm getting at with this is that the entire narrative revolves around casting the african out as the other - and the bulk of the justification came from religion first, and race second.
so, what is black culture, then? well, if you're going to tell me i shouldn't listen to hip-hop because i'm white, you're just enforcing the separation and upholding the hierarchy. the premise of music belonging to a culture at all strikes me as kind of ridiculous. i'm not going to tell a black guy he can't listen to rachmaninov (i'm skipping over beethoven for a specific reason) or play romantic piano music because he's black. i'd rather listen to the tunes than get weirded out by somebody's skin tone. and i don't understand why anybody would want to tell me i can't listen to or perform hip-hop because i'm white, or that it ought to be "pop" instead.
that kind of integration ought to be viewed positively. and, i get that the history here kind of sucks, given that blacks have largely lost the last few forms they pioneered. but, i think it's a complex question as to whether it was truly lost/stolen or if it was abandoned.
i just don't see how we're moving forwards with this separation of music and art into colours, when we live in such proximity with each other and share so many experiences....
it's incredibly pointless to try and argue whether white or black slavery was "worse".
firemedic30ca
It's not really an argument of which was worse as much higher as it is a demand for recognition. The fact of the matter is every race on the planet has been a victim of slavery. It's rich vs poor, and was never skin color vs skin color, like most are taught to believe. The sickening part of this is the refusal of any one to accept it, there by allowing another part of our dark history to be forgotten.
Now, slavery was horrible no matter what your color. However, there was a point in time in which African slaves were highly priced and sought after as they were considered harder workers, while white slaves were not. This lead to more deaths among the white slave population simply because they were a dime a dozen and less desirable. The torture and punishment was essentially the same, but whites suffered a higher mortality rate. One could argue that because the blacks lived longer and suffered more, that life for them was worse because they weren't afforded the mercy of dying and no longer being a victim.
Facts are facts. This happened, and the circumstances are what they are. Accepting it doesn't make you racist, doesn't down play black suffering or change it in anyway for the rest of the world. It only changes the perceived power of those that continuously attempt to use black slavery to their favor.
deathtokoalas
i was responding to the comments section, which is full of debates about which is "worse".
but it's equally important to take slavery out of the western colonial context you're pigeonholing it into. the largest slave trading civilization in history was not america but the islamic empire, which transported upwards of ten times as many slaves out of an area that included modern day africa, india and ukraine. it's quite instructive to look at the systemic system of slavery that the arabs set up. it's a little bit unique in it's "diversity of slavery" due to the fact that they were in the middle of the world. an arab slave harem would have had people of just about every colour in it. nor would their colour have had anything to do with their condition. the mongols also took white slaves.
from the racial perspective, the arabs did not treat ukrainians any differently than they treated africans. both were inferior peoples. and they lived roughly similar lifestyles based around small agricultural villages, pastoralism and hunting. arab slave traders would land in the crimea and go out and round them up out of their villages. it was really identical to anything you'd imagine a spanish slave raid of west africa would look like, except the skin colour was reversed.
what it actually had to do with in all of these circumstances was not race or wealth but religion. i mean, it's about economics, obviously. but the criteria for oppression was always "you're in the wrong religion". the muslims simply enslaved anyone who wasn't muslim. white, black, whatever - didn't matter. the basis of slavery in western colonies is actually based on a papal emulation of this muslim economic policy, starting from a papal bull in 1452 that gave the portugese king the right to enslave non-christians. the british enslavement of catholic ireland is also religious in justification.
and, they were consistent about this in weird ways, too. one of the oldest churches in the world is actually in ethiopia. it seems to have been christianized in the roman era, and then cut off from europe - and never islamized. when the portugese arrived in ethiopia and found christians, they did not enslave them - because they did not have papal authority to do so. in fact, they formed an alliance with them against the "saracens". the result was a war where white europeans and black africans fought against arabs based on religion rather than skin colour.
so, what you're saying is correct. but it needs broader context. slavery is not and never has been about one race's superiority over another. it's always been economic in justification, and centered around broad civilizational themes. skin colour was one civilizational theme, but very short-lived. things like religion and language have historically been far more important in determining who the elite subjugates.
cogli
you are absolutely correct. And that is continuously manipulated for and by what ever socioeconomic agenda is being foisted upon us at any given moment..at which time talking of Koala we could use the ReClaim Australia movement as a classic example of your theme...the main thing that stands out with all of this is the manipulation of ignorance, lack of historical knowledge and context. Interesting also that throughout these discussions when discussing the Americas nobody has thought to mention the Chinese..on a scale of who had it worse ..phew! that's like losing the number 10. .............. But the interesting thing with the Irish that I have found, is how profoundly the Ireland Irish were shocked and horrified by what racist bigots the American Irish had become by the early 1900s..this blog and others like it made me do a little digging and there are a massive number of comments by De Valera, Collins, The IRA right the way through to the 70s when discussing funding from The USA how they are happy to work with The American Black liberation movements and Islamic groups but were not in favour of accepting aid from Irish American groups they labelled " a bunch of racist bigots"..which was bit surprising compared to urban myth....... Interesting also is that the polling in the USA showed that The Jewish Americans were by far and wide the greatest supporters of the Black Liberation and Black equality movements throughout the 40s 50s 60s and 70s ..so some eye openers there...and if we go back to your premise and apply it to the current elite model, it is interesting to see that Ireland has deliberately and forcefully blocked all attempts for anti Islamic protests to get off the ground.. their anti Islamic march as a result, managed to get only 12 protestors..where as the Australian elite are using these protests as an asset/ blind/diversion...so the alignments are still following very very old trading paths at the same time as showing,... how cultures self colonise to fit the elite of their environment in order to survive and succeed...your comment reminds me of the statement by the ex head of IBM at a Multinational Corporations meeting in the 90s :::"we are now in the privileged position where we farm the entire world by the logic of profit..We decide what education a country gets or if it gets one. What toothpaste they use and what they eat for breakfast and Culture, Race, Religion and National Boundaries are just another marketable product."
deathtokoalas
i think that nativism is a natural and almost inevitable reaction to oppression, and a lesson we have a hard time learning. up in canada, protest movements tend to integrate themselves with indigenous groups. over time, it seems like we've lost the plot on this. the reality is that an indigenous protest has greater legal protection; so, a native group can blockade an oil company and not have the cops break it up the same way that they'd break up an environmental group's blockade. it makes a lot of sense to build alliances out of that to get to common ends, and it consequently makes sense for protest groups to push solidarity with indigenous sovereignty struggles.
but, nobody really looks into the society they're fighting for: one where gender roles are enforced through expulsion, women have very few rights, gays are banned from everything, positions of civil authority are limited by ethnic background...
i look at their proposals and say "this is israel.". and, yet it's the same friends organizing solidarity rallies for the native groups that are organizing solidarity rallies for palestine. ironically, the only answer i can come to with this is that it's a type of marginalization. that is, it seems to be rooted in some kind of weird stereotype of the "benevolent indian" - the "noble savage" - that couldn't possibly cause anybody any harm.
i think if you really take a look around at the world, this is a pattern that repeats itself through history. the more you tear down an identity, the more it breeds violent forms of nationalism and extremism.
in some cases, there's little choice. the black liberation movements into the 70s were necessary, and their work has been left unfinished. with the racial profiling, school-to-prison pipeline and massive racial inequality in the united states, it seems like there's no other way to go. that's going to produce these exclusivist strains. like, i'm not on the side of anybody that clams that white people shouldn't be allowed to rap - or black people can't like rachmaninov. but, when your culture is constantly being ripped apart, that exclusivity is an inevitable reaction by people trying to reconstruct an identity.
it's easy to say "these are the last people you'd expect this from, they should know better". but, maybe that's misunderstanding the issue. maybe, it's more reasonable to think "you'd expect people with a history of being repressed to lash out at others".
web
So very true. We were never there so we do not know. All we know i what is told to us. Those who truly knew what happened are sadly gone and with them the truth.
deathtokoalas
well, i'm obviously drawing from sources. i'm not consulting my crystal ball. this information was recorded. it does exist. and, not just in historical documents, either. the video suggests dickens, and he is certainly widely regarded as a valuable source of information on the topic in england - to the point that i read dickens in high school. there's the famous text by engels, of course. and modern scholarship (zinn, for example) is ensuring that the class basis of slavery is not forgotten.
i mean, even a cursory history of greece will point to the helots. as oscar wilde pointed out not that long ago, slavery and civilization are intrinsically related. this isn't likely to be forgotten, even if it's kept a little obscured.